Both Alike in Dignity
by thatdrncat
Summary: Regulus Black's account of the downward spiral of his untimely fall, and the true impact he had on the Wizarding World.
1. Introduction

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**'Both Alike In Dignity'**

_Introduction_

Looking back, I never should have done it.

And as I sit here, awaiting my fate as a betrayer, it is all I can think about.

I hadn't known about Sirius' death in the Ministry of Magic, not until Lucius Malfoy took it upon himself to tell me. Lucius had always like to see me in pain, and he knew that night when he revealed the death to me that it would be the most intense pain I've ever experienced.

And it was.

This was my life, my gift, and my curse. To know of his death was a prophecy in itself, and the production of that prophecy was what brought me here.

Through the flood of tears streaming form my eyes, through the growing pain in my throat as I screamed out Sirius' name over and over, I felt Lucius' evil smirk as I melted into his arms, _clinging_ to him as those horribly beautiful grey eyes look lasciviously over my quivering form. He _knows_ what the 'Dark Lord' is going to let him do to me before the most unforgivable of all the Unforgivable Curses is cast upon me, not that Lucius would even have to ask permission, considering our history.

The look he gives... it makes me shiver just to think, to remember, but I cannot stop crying. It makes me remember everything even more clearly. The two of them, Sirius and Lucius, would fight so incredibly brutally that I could never watch. Especially that one time- no magic, no wands. Just bare-knuckle brawling that would have gone to the death if Professor Dumbledore hadn't broken it up.

And I know that it is all my fault...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That's not where it started; it started right before my sixth year, before the name of Voldemort had even reached my ears.

----------

There were only three days left before Sirius and I returned to Hogwarts.

"_YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT OR_ WHO _I SHAG!_ "

Father had pulled himself away from work to give Sirius his bi-annual lecture. Of course, I was inclined to listen.

"_Sirius, would you calm down?_" Father's voice was hostile, but calm, the way that it sounded whenever he and Sirius argued, "_NO, I WON'T! YOU CAN'T CONTROL MY LIFE! I'LL SHAG WHOEVER I BLOODY WANT WHILE I'M AT SCHOOL, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN-_"

"_Don't you dare!_"

Father had slammed his fist down on the table. Things were about to get ugly, and I had to see this. I opened the door the smallest bit and looked through, Sirius and Father were standing, both giving each together the terrible death stare, that was so incredibly common in our family.

"Don't you _dare_ say that there is there is nothing I can do, Sirius. Because you know, you _know _that there are a great many things I am able to do."

At this point, father's eyes became as if they were two pools of black chemical acid in the burning centre of Hell, and I felt a chill go up my spine, and then Father began to speak again, "And you also know that there are a great many ways I can do away with that poofter werewolf mate of yours."

Sirius, who had kept his composure up until now, seemed to have deteriorated under father's words, and he didn't stop at that, "Yes, I _know _that you two have had it on, and you hold some kind of personal connection to him, unlike your _many _female callers."

There was a certain disgust in father's voice at this last sentence, "But, nevertheless, I have connections, as you well know, and I could have those connections _harm _your friend in ways that he could never imagine."

The hatred in Sirius' eyes was so intense, it nearly surpassed our father's, "_If you touch one hair one his head, _" Sirius growled, "_Then I will kill you with my bare hands. No magic, just death._"

So that was it. My older brother, Sirius, who I had always looked up to, who was probably one of the most notorious playboys Hogwarts had ever seen- was gay. He was a bloody poofter. Unbelievable...

Father paused for a moment, seeming to take in what Sirius had just said, and then, as fast as lightning, a fiery blue flash came out of the end of Father's wand, which had just been sitting on his desk. Sirius was blown back against the wall, a loud thud resulting from the impact. Father waltzed over to Sirius, whispered something inaudibly, and punched Sirius right in the mouth- hard.

Maybe it was the shock of what I had just seen my father do (he had never taken a hand to either of us), or just the shock of finding out my older brother was gay, but the way Sirius looked against the firelight was nearly breathtaking. The way the shadows danced across his pained and angered face, the way the blood gushed out of his mouth, or just the way he looked overall, he was a work of art, something I would never be.

I rocked myself out of my euphoria and got up from the crouching position I was in, the conversation had ended, and I knew that this was the time to get to my room and pretend like I hadn't heard, and didn't _know_, a thing.

I snuck back to my room as quickly as I couldjust hearing the door of father's study as I turned the corner into the next hallway. Grimmauld Place was much larger than it looked from the outside, and the rooms were even larger. My room itself was at least half the size of the Slytherin Common Room, and Sirius' was bigger than mine. I hadn't even seen the inside of our parents' bedroom, but I wouldn't have been surprised if ti was half a dining hall.

I shut the door to my room and quickly sat in a chair and grabbed a book from the shelf and opened it to a random page, pretending that I was heavily involved in my reading, which was really just staring at the page and flitting my eyes back and forth. I heard Sirius' footsteps approaching, and quickly sent a fireball hurling into the fireplace so that it looked like I had been sitting in my room, reading innocently the entire time (it didn't exactly help, though, that the book was entitled _Great Executions of the Middle Ages_).

Sirius came plowing through the door and stalked into my bathroom, rummaging around for a bit in the mirror cabinet. I could only see this because of the mirror on the opposite side of the room that I had strategically placed in order to see into the bathroom whenever Sirius came in to get something. This was a common thing for Sirius to do, as he usually just came into my room and 'borrowed' my things without asking anyway.

After a few minutes of completely destroying the neatness of my bathroom and then fixing it again with a flick of his wand, Sirius came into the room and sat on my bed without a word. He had four large gashes on his face, which startled me. I hadn't seen that when father punched him, which I concluded to be the cause of the dim light in the room, that he didn't hit in him in the mouth, but on the side of the face with pointed knuckles.

Pointed knuckles were the self-explanatory and very popular 'discipline tools' used within the Black and Malfoy family during the eleventh century. The fad went out of style when the methods by which they used were found out by the Ministry (like they wouldn't have been able to guess that anyway), and therefore looked down upon as savage and cruel. They were made of a silver band that was slipped across the fingers, and on the rises where the knuckles were to go, there were four small but sharp studs that hurt terribly when they collided with any part of you own body, as you could understand. Unfortunately, just because the pointed knuckles were looked down upon, did not mean that the silver instruments were outlawed because of the strong influence of both families on the Ministry at that time. A few of the original pointed knuckles still existed after the Ministry's discovery, and their design was duplicated and sold. As for our family, I'm quite sure father still owned and kept fresh our ancient family set of pointed knuckles, complete with the Black crest on the underside.

Sirius held up a roll of bandages and whispered something, tapping the bandages with his wand. In a spiral motion, the white pieces of cloth swirled about and covered his face. I watched him as the bandages tightened around his face and then relaxed.

"What happened?" I asked, trying to be as coy as possible.

Sirius sighed and looked away, "One of father's 'talks'." He said, pointing to the bandage.

"Oh..." I said under my breath, my eyes glancing back to the book.

"Don't _oh_ me, Regulus. I know you were listening."

I snapped the book shut and said in a jocularly sarcastic tone, "Mistrust? From my own brother?! I am shocked and disgusted that you would challenge my integrity." I smirked and Sirius laughed, running his hand through his hair and gazing into the fire. The light from the flames danced about his features in a hypnotising way that aroused something in me I did not recognise. He seemed to be aloof and uncaring for what had just happened, but the look in his dark blue eyes told me that he was thinking very hard. As I watched him, I saw something in Sirius I had not seen before. The bandages wrapped around his jaw gave him a distinct look of some sort of depraved person, which was somehow enticing. The fire, casting light back and forth across his face, playing some sort of ghastly trick on my eyes that made my own brother look... _attractive_. I must have been really zoning out, because he smacked me in the face in a playfully aggressive way and asked what the hell my problem was, "What?" I asked, tuning back in.

"I asked," he said, "_What did you hear?_"

There was a certain sense of panic in his voice, and I knew what it was about. He hadn't wanted me to find out about Lupin, and you can probably understand why. Just then, though, I could barely speak to him, his blue eyes were glowing with such an intensity that I could only be from the dread of the possibility that I knew his secret, so I decided to cut him a break. I stood and walked to the bed, sitting down next to him, and I said, "I only heard the part at the end when you were slammed against the wall."

His face eased and he looked at me, smiling, "Good," He said in a relieved tone,

and he lowered his shoulders down from their offensive state. His chest heaved in a small motion that was accentuated only by the firelight, and it was just too much- I quickly moved my hand to his face, to his warm, alabaster skin that made him reminiscent of a living statue, and ran my fingers through his hair. here was nothing I could do to stop myself. Sirius was too much for Lupin, Lupin couldn't handle him, only I could... These were all the thoughts running through my head as I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his, the fire inside of me burning right along with the one in hearth. I knew what I was doing, and though it seemed crazy, it felt so right... He put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back, looking down, "Regulus," he whispered, "Don't..."

He blew air out his nose and bit his upper lip, then looked into my eyes and said, "Get to sleep, we're going to Diagon tomorrow."

With that, he walked out of the room and shut the door, leaving me in utter confusion of what the hell I had just done.

I awoke the next morning, not having a very clear idea of what I had attempted to do the night before. All I could really recall was myself trying to kiss Sirius (and almost succeeding), and them him walking out, I had such a bad mind in the mornings.

What am I talking about? I _still_ have a bad mind in the mornings.

I walked downstairs and nearly tripped over Kreacher, who mumbled some nasty words and kept going. How I hated that foul-tempered house elf, but mother always insisted on keeping him around, though she never really told me why. I sauntered through the dining room and into the kitchen, where Sirius was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in one hand, and one of those muggle cigarettes he had grown so fond of. It was funny, the fire inside me that I remembered from last night wasn't there when I saw him sitting at the table that morning, and I looked at him like any other younger brother would looked at his older brother. Though, unfortunately, he didn't look at me at all.

"Morning..." I said in attempt to catch his gaze, "Morning." He grunted, barely glancing in my direction. I sat down at the table, not ready to give up yet, "Look, about what happened last night-"

"Don't worry about it."

"But, Sirius, I-"

"_Don't worry about it._" He looked at me now, but not in the way I would have liked him to. He spoke with such a austere tone that could only have reminded me of father. Sirius sometimes looked so much like father it was scary, and this was one of these times. Though it was morning, it was still quite dark out, and the light above made him look all the more intimidating. He stared at me, his dark blue eyes bearing into me as they had bore into the fire the night before. In those eyes, I saw so much pain, something I had never experienced. My mother would never let me experience anything close to discomfort, and suddenly I became very jealous, not necessarily because of the pain he endured, but of Lupin. I had no real reason to be envious of him, but I suppose it was just my Black blood setting in. Nonetheless, I had no control over what I was about to say, "_Look, it's not my fault that you and Lupin are flamers and that Dad put a stop to it! Maybe it's better that you're not off shagging some goddamn werewolf!_"

That was the slicer.

I had known Lupin was a werewolf ever since Severus Snape told me during my first year, and I had kept quiet, knowing that Sirius would trust me if I said nothing. Following my outburst, everything happened so fast; the table I had been leaning on to support my screaming was suddenly gone from beneath my hands as I was shoved up against the wall. The clatter of Sirius' discarded chair against the tile floor echoed across the walls of the large room, but was soon blanked out in my mind as Sirius began to speak in a harsh and abrasive tone, "_You're just like them. Dad and Mum, you are EXACTLY LIKE THEM,_" His eyes were intense, his voice hushed and terrifying, "_Judging everything I do, everything I say... I'm fucking sick of it, Regulus!_"

He was pressing me so hard against the wall that I thought he was going to push me through. I tried to shove him off, but he was bigger and stronger than I was, "_Sirius, I..._" I found it quite difficult to speak, which I concluded was Sirius pushing so hard against me that he was crushing my lungs, "_What, Regulus? What do you all want from me?!_"

"_Sirius, I lo-_"

My mother came crashing through the door and screeched at what she saw, "_Boys! Stop fighting!_" We both looked at her in shock and Sirius got off instinctively. He then looked at me, the anger not nearly gone from his eyes as he turned and walked pass our mother, who was clad in traveling robes. As soon as Sirius was out of earshot, she brushed the hair out of my eyes and said as if I was eight years old, "Did he hurt you, darling?" She cupped my face in her hand and I broke loose, incredibly annoyed, "I'm fine, Mum, _Christ_!"

I stormed out of the room, jealous and angry and annoyed all at the same time. It was no wonder I turned out the way I did, with my mother doting upon me all the time like that. She used to do the same to Sirius, but she became a bit standoffish towards him in a subtle way ever since he was placed in Gryffindoor. I assume father never told her about Lupin, or the things Sirius _did_ with Lupin, or else she would have been a little more than standoffish towards my brother.

But I wondered, as I put on my own traveling robe, what I was going to say right before mother came in. Was I going to say that I loved Sirius? Well, of course I loved him. But, as disgusting as it may seem, I wasn't sure if it was only brotherly love I was feeling.

---------

When Sirius, Mum, and I arrived at the two Alleys (this is what people who shopped at both Knockturn and Diagon called them), Sirius vanished in about five seconds upon our arrival. Mother soon disappeared as well, but not before telling me where she was going to be if I ran into any trouble. This was the _last _thing I needed- to be known as the little Black boy that ran to his mummy every time he got into trouble. I told my mum that I would do so, though, just so she didn't start going crazy like she usually did.

Diagon Alley was lively and busy, as it always was this time of year. It was sort of an escape for me; being kept in that dreary house for nearly the whole of the summer holiday with no friends to be my refuge made it a big deal to actually be in public and around other people. When you're kept in a confined area for a long time, quite like the area I'm in right now, writing these words down, you get desperate for wizard and witch contact, and will take anything for just a moment of it... But we're not nearly that far in the story yet.

I tried to stay out of Knockturn Alley for as long as I could, as it was not a particularly pleasant place to be to begin with, also because I knew my mother was going to be there for at least an hour, and I really did not want to be around my mother right now, if you already haven't figured that out. Knockturn was not the way it is today, that is to say, it didn't have that much of a bad reputation. Witches and wizards could walk freely there in those days without becoming free game for the Ministry of Magic to spy on. Though it was (and always has been) quite dark and depressing and reeked of evil, it was quite acceptable to shop there for anything a person saw fit.

I walked around Diagon for a while, not really having any real destination. When I got bored of that, I made my way to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and got myself a new school robe, seeing as I had accidentally set mine on fire last year in Charms. After I was finished getting the robe fitted, I walked to Flourish & Blotts right across the street. Since I really had no friends to write to when I was at home, I immersed myself in books in hope of trying to live up to Sirius' level. I know what you're thinking right now; pathetic. Well, I would have to say that you are right, but I wasn't going to let the fact that I basically worshipped the ground Sirius walked on stop me from being as good as he was in school.

I walked out of Flourish & Blotts with an arm full of books and looked into the window of Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop to see none other than Sirius, James, Peter, and, to my twinge of envy, Lupin. In the old days, roughly around first to third year, Sirius would let me tag along with the rest the Marauders (this is what they used to call themselves, don't ask me why), but those days were long since past, and there was probably no chance of resurrecting those times today. But when I looked in on Sirius, he was laughing. Sirius _never _laughed when he was at home, and I could sort of understand why. Just like me, Sirius was barely allowed out of the house during summer holiday, and closeness that he and his friends shared probably just made it all the more difficult... _especially _the closeness shared between him and Lupin.

I walked away from Gambol and Japes before I was noticed, knowing that Sirius would have been royally pissed off if he caught me watching him and his friends. So, I walked down the dreaded Alley, thinking that maybe I'd go and check out Borgin and Burkes to see if they had anything that wasn't too creepy, and I was suddenly off of my feet and into a dark part of the Alley, my arms held up high against the wall.

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	2. Corruption in the Study

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**Chapter One**

_Immorality_

I was shoved up against the wall, my mouth becoming fully occupied with somebody else's tongue while I feebly tried to protest. Then I realised that the way this person kissed was quite familiar, and I then knew who it was.

"Hello, Lucius..."

Lucius Malfoy; a young man in Sirius' year that got pleasure in using me to fit his every whim every time we were alone. Sometimes, he forced the solitude on me so that there was no turning back.

"_Regulus..._" He whispered, his hot breath going down my neck and sending shivers through me, "_It seems like so long since I've last seen you,_" He ran his hand up my leg, "_And you've definitely grown._"

This was the reason my preference on gender changed as soon as I walked into Hogwarts in my third year. Lucius and I were both in Slytherin, and, since I was the brother of his rival, he decided to make sure I did everything he wanted, and I mean _everything_, just to annoy the hell out of Sirius... and it worked. Thanks to Lucius, I was by no means a virgin anymore.

I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back, not forcefully enough to anger him (that was something I seriously did _not _want to do), but just to show him I wasn't too keen on the fact that he and I seemed to be about to get on with it in a dark alleyway. Lucius stepped back with a wicked smirk on his pale face that was only accentuated by his blonde fringe (he had short hair then) and a look of hostility in his icy blue eyes, which surveyed me from head to toe, and then went back to my face and looked it over, "You look different, Regulus," He said, putting his long fingers in my hair, "Less boyish and more... masculine." He again took to my neck, but this time he kissed and sucked on it, no doubt leaving a bruise that Sirius was liable to notice. Again I pushed him away and shouted in a hushed tone as to not attract any attention, "_Lucius, will you just fuck off?!_"

The smirk disappeared, and the hostility increased, "What, Regulus?" He took a step toward me, trying to get me closer to the wall again, "Is there someone else?" I looked away, slightly flushing (I didn't have the talent of hiding my emotions then like I do now), "That's it, isn't it?!" Lucius slammed me against the wall again, this time actually hurting me. He grabbed my hands and held them high above my head with one hand. With his other hand, he took hold of my jaw and kissed me violently, exploring every inch of my mouth with his tongue and biting me more than kissing me. The way my neck was positioned and the forcefulness with which Lucius kept kissing me made me feel as if my neck was about to break. I started to try and say something, but Lucius just responded by unbuttoning my shirt and delving his hand up, feeling across my chest with his cold hands. This went on for about five minutes with Lucius groping and borderline molesting me to an obscene amount and then nearly choking me with his tongue. By the time he was done, I had forgotten what I was going to say, and could only try to catch my breath since it was actually a semi-pleasurable experience, as twisted as that sounds. As always, he had started me up, but then left me dry. No matter how masculine Lucius said I looked, it still didn't change the fact that he was bigger and stronger than me and probably always would be- Sirius got the masculinity from father, and I got along with the recessive genes from mother's side of the family. I just dealt with it. I dealt with everything back then. I probably could have easily hexed him off of me as I wasn't _totally _talentless, but I kept going back his room, back to _him_. It was a terrible addiction, but it somehow made me feel like I was in control, even though Lucius was really the dominant one. This was my choice, and the pain I endured from Lucius during the school year was, no matter how mental it sounds, was my only outlet from the pain I endured from everything else.

Ha ha, I'm so depressing.

Lucius was not yet finished with meHe grabbed me by the hair that he was so recently caressing and brought me up to his level as he was an inch or so taller than I was and whispered, "_You're mine, Regulus. No one else's._" I mentally cringed at the thought of being only Lucius' for the rest of my life, "_If I ever find that you're shagging someone else, then..._"

"What the fuck is going on here?!"

We both looked to the source of the outburst and saw Sirius standing there, wand pointed, accompanied by James and Lupin. Wormtail, that sniveling coward who does not deserve to be called human, must have run off due to his increasing fear of being within fifty feet of Lucius.

"Malfoy, you let go of him _now_." Lucius let me go and we both straightened up, my eyes never leaving Sirius. "Alright, Black," Lucius said, smirking again, "Just a business proposition between friends, nothing to excited over." He said, looking at Sirius' wand which was still pointed at his face. Lucius glanced at me and his eyes flashed with horrible lust, "See you in Common Room, Regulus." He looked at Sirius and then at Lupin and James, who gave him the finger and the 'up yours' sign at the same time. "We'll wait for you around the bend, yeah?" James said to Sirius, who nodded. I shot one contemptuous look at Lupin before the two went off in the opposite direction of Malfoy.

As soon as they had gone, Sirius walked over to me and asked, "Are you alright?" and then proceeded to check me in a very maternal manner for anything conspicuous. I silently enjoyed the physical contact between the two of us as he ran his hands over my face to check for anything obtrusive.

Sirius didn't know a thing about me and Lucius. As far as Sirius knew, Lucius just picked on me once in a while because I was his rival's younger brother. "What was that about, then?" he asked, "Nothing." I said aloofly. His eyes stopped on my neck, "What is that?" I panicked for one second and then put the collar of my blazer up, covering the bruise.

"Nothing," I said aloofly, and moved to the side, kind of being pushed against the wall by Sirius and wanting to be in that position much anymore. "Yeah, well, Mum was looking for you, she said that it was time to go home." I looked back and asked, "What about you?" He caught up with me and said, "I'm going to James' place. I'll be back in the morning to get my things." I looked away for a second and Sirius said jokingly, "Well, don't look _too_ disappointed..." I glanced at him and retorted, "I'm _not _disappointed. Go on, _leave_. I don't care." I kept walking, but Sirius stopped, all humour gone from his voice, " Regulus, I want to talk to you about.. what happened last night."

I turned, feeling the anger within me, and said to him, "There's nothing to talk about."

**----------**

It was now the day before my final return to Hogwarts.

All of my things were packed, as were Sirius'. They were sitting in his trunk in the doorway of his room, waiting for him to come and pick them up, and they weren't the only ones that were waiting.

The night before, I barely slept. And when I did sleep, it was a restless slumber disturbed by dreams. Some dreams were of Lucius, and some dreams were of Sirius. The dreams of Lucius were more like nightmares, and extremely violent. But since they were violent, they were primarily realistic. The little scene that had taken place the day before was barely anything compared to what Lucius and I had done before and what would definitely do again in the course of the coming year. It was usually _much_ more brutal and savage than that. The only thing that every reminded me of it was music from a muggle band that I heard Sirius and James listening to on a radio James' father had managed to smuggle out of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department in the Ministry of Magic. The band was called the 'Sex Pistols', whatever a pistol is. The raw emotion with which the lead singer belted out the words described exactly what I had been feeling, but had never let out. It was my own way of secretly rebelling against my parents, what I allowed Lucius to do to me; proving to myself that I wasn't their perfect little son. Of course, they knew nothing about it, but I pushed that fact to the back of my mind and just leaned back to take Lucius in, no matter how much the pain he gave me added to the actual pain inside that was eating me away with every passing day.

I could barely remember the dreams of Sirius, and what I do remember was unsettling; when I saw Sirius, he had a black glow about him. I couldn't speak, and when tried to look out my tongue, it was a disgusting serpent that sprang out of my mouth and bit Sirius multiple times. He struggled for a moment, his intense eyes wide open and staring at me, his face bearing an expression of shock and betrayal, and then died, just like that.

I had no idea what these dreams meant, but when I saw Sirius come home to pick up his things, there was nothing I could do to stop myself. There was nobody else around- not Mother (out with her friends), not Father (out on business) not even that annoying house elf (God-knows-where), and Sirius and I barely got a chance to be alone anymore without Mother nosing about. I walked down the stairs and practically jumped on Sirius, kissing him with such ferocity that could only have been adopted from Lucius. Unlike I immediately expected him to do, Sirius did not push me away like he had done before; he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me up the stairs, kissing me with such intensity that could only be felt when you knew you were doing something terribly wrong.

But, at this moment, neither of us could care less.

With every incestuous stroke of the skin, with every socially banned delve of tongues the last shred of innocence I had left was taken away and I really did not care, for there was no one I would rather have stolen it.

----------

It was immoral pleasure that drove us to do what we did that morning, and, as I lay there, the entangled sheets around me, enjoying every moment of this forbidden indulgence, Sirius was the only thing I cared about in the world. My dream of his death did not resurface in my mind because it was already too clouded to even think of anything at all. Is this what sex was supposed to be like? If it truly was, I couldn't understand why I hadn't tried this before with someone other than Lucius, and I narrowed it down to the fact that I liked to be tormented and hurt, just to see if I could really feel anything at all. But at this moment, I was feeling something, all right.

As I held on gasping to the iron bars of my headboard for support, I pushed the fact that the young man above me was my brother to the back of my mind, and gave in to the pleasure of doing something so inexplicably perverted in the eyes of society that it could have killed me if I was not used to this sort of thing, though his event that I experienced with Sirius was absolutely_ nothing_ like I was accustomed to from Lucius- this was intensely more passionate than any of the near-rapings I had endured from him, and I savoured it until it was over.

**----------**

When I woke up, I was fully clothed in my sleeping wear.

_What the Hell?_

I sprang to my feet, seeing that I was even wearing my socks; a person only wears socks to bed if they're taking extra care to not be cold, and, from what I remember, I wasn't cold in the slightest bit.

I ran about the house, looking for Sirius, but he was nowhere to be found. Was it a dream? Had I dreamed the entire thing? I really hoped I hadn't, but my body didn't show any signs that I had actually done what I thought I did earlier that day. Blecch, I hate talking about the body. I'm sorry, it just drives me insane. All of the _experiences_ with Lucius had totally deromanticised the entire 'beauty of the human form' thing. To Lucius, bodies were things to either be disposed of, or used. In my case, my body was a thing to be used- explicitly by him. But that's why I did what I thought I had done; because Lucius had told me not to sleep with anybody else besides him, and just the thought of breaking the rules of anything excited me. I had gone around my entire life being told what to do, and I was bloody sick of it! It was nobody else's business what I did with my personal life, not even my mother's! _I COULD SHAG WHOEVER I BLOODY WELL WANTED TO, EVEN IF THEY HAPPENED TO BE DIRECTLY RELATED TO ME! _

Whoa, I was even starting to think like Sirius.

But my fighting spirit was nearly defeated when I returned to my room, exhausted from sprinting about Grimmauld Place, trying to look for a brother that obviously wasn't there. I crumpled onto my bed, convinced that what happened was just a dream. An inner aspiration of my sick and perverted mind to do something so immoral that would falsely convince myself that I could rebel against my parents, and against Lucius, against everybody. But, no, I heard a crumpling noise under my pillow, and found it to be a piece of paper, neatly folded yet rumpled from the impact of my head.

It read in Sirius' neatly printed writing,

_We have to talk. Sneak out of the sorting ceremony tonight at eight thirty _

_and meet me in the One-Eyed Witch passageway._

I really had no idea what to expect, but I when I looked at my watch, I nearly had a heart attack: it was ten, and the Hogwarts Express would be leaving in one hour.

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	3. Last Return

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter Two**

_Last Return_

Platform 9 ¾ was crowded, as it usually was.

For some odd reason, I liked crowds. The hustle of everything around me was just so comforting compared to my boring life at Grimmauld Place, which was, for lack of a better word due to my continually decreasing need of an acceptable vocabulary, _grim_. You see, when you're in a position like I am currently in, you develop a nasty habit of swearing at every single fucking goddamn thing that moves, and even just swearing for the hell of it like I just did... Everything was so incredibly lively and colourful when you were standing in the middle of a concourse of witches and wizards instead of the barren, grey hallways of my home. I'll tell you one thing, I was glad to get away- away from the nagging of my mother, away from the stalking of that disturbing little house elf, and away from the evidently frequent absence of my father, which was, in retrospect, a strange thing to be glad to get away from. But most of all, I was glad to get away from my room. I had gone over and over it trying to find even a trace of Sirius, just some proof that he had actually been there (moreover been there with _me_), and that what I had experienced wasn't only a dream. I had never been one to live in fantasy, even my childhood dreams had been kind of stolen away in one, um, _stab_, and I was kind of hoping that my meeting with Sirius tonight after dinner would answer all of my questions. And I sort of hoped, way back in my mind, that his answers might turn some of my long-lost fantasies into realities.

I boarded the train, nearly dead last since I had to run to catch it, and began the search to find a seat. This was almost entirely impossible due to the fact that the Hogwarts Express' creators made a train with about 900 booths and 3,600 seats that was destined for a school with 4,000 students. And with the totally unacceptable but totally reasonable rule of no magic outside school, we weren't allowed to put charms on the booths to expand the inside volume, so everybody had to either cram in or stay out, and I was usually one of the seatless 400 who had to stay out in the hallways and wait for the train to come to it's final stop. This was the case for the first five years of my Hogwarts experience, but I was not going to let the inadequate seating on the train get the best of me! I scanned the booths for about twenty minutes, looking for an empty seat, but I only found seats that were surrounded by my other classmates. It's not like I had anything against the other kids in school, but I was never really the social type and because of my family's wealth, that aspect of my personality reflected poorly upon me and earned me the brand of a prat who thought he was better than everybody else. This wasn't true, but I really didn't want to make the effort to defend myself. I guess that just made me look worse.

I passed Lucius' booth, and then Sirius'. They were all laughing and joking with their friends, probably under the influence of some firewhiskey that somebody had managed to sneak on to the train. I didn't dare ask if I could join either of them, and I'm not sure I would have really wanted to either. Finally, after about an hour, I found a seat, but it wasn't the most desirable I could imagine. Though he had helped me out with numerous things in the past, Severus Snape was not exactly the best company on the train, but I really had no other choice. I poked my head into the booth, hitting the back of my legs with my trunk and cringing, but still managing to ask, "Severus, could I sit in here?" He was looking out the window, his greasy hair shining sickeningly in the waning sunlight. "Sure, if you want to." Severus' tone was steely, as it normally was. His black eyes were piercing in an unsettling sort of way, and they were only brought out by his ghostly pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes that had seemed to have gotten darker since I left him at the beginning of summer holiday.

I put my trunk up on the shelves where it wouldn't get in the way, and sat back to enjoy the feeling of sitting down after walking around for an hour. "So, what did you do over summer holiday?" I asked, suddenly lighthearted, "Oh, the usual..." Severus replied with a tired scowl, "You?" I nodded, "The same."

Severus was probably the closest to a friend as I would ever get, and I think he thought of me the same way. He didn't coldly turn away whenever I spoke to him, like he did with everybody else at school. We both had a lot of things in common; we didn't have any other friends, we were basically closed up in our houses for the whole of summer holiday, we were both tortured by Sirius (though his situation was a bit different than mine), and we were both 'toys' of Lucius. Kind of hard to believe, isn't it? Though, in the past few years, I had kind of taken Severus' place in Lucius' bed. This was a favour, Severus had said in a rare moment of clarity, that would render him indebted to me for the rest of his life. For some reason, Lucius was rougher on Severus than anybody else that he 'fraternised' with- I had seen it. There was a bit of blood when Lucius was with me, but when he was with Severus, the blood nearly pooled on the floor in small puddles. How Lucius did that with no sort of tools or even magic is beyond me. All I know is what I saw when I entered the room one day after Lucius was done with Severus, who came stumbling out and wouldn't stop crying the rest of the night. That had definitely had taken its' toll on Severus, and I tried as much as I could to take up Lucius' time. It was hard and exhausting, but I finally got Lucius to look away from Severus. No matter how much pain it caused me, I knew that it would be better for Severus, whose family life was even more screwed up than mine. I swear, if his father ever found out about the things he had done with Lucius, Severus would not be alive and I am honestly not joking. In any case, Severus didn't have the type of mental stamina to deal with that sort of thing. Bullying from my brother and James he could handle, but not continuous sexual harassment from someone he would see in class the very next day. That was the type of thing only a person like_ me _could handle, don't ask me why. I knew Lucius had others, but I made sure that Severus wasn't going to turn into one of his whores. When that happened, there was no way of escaping him no matter how hard you tried.

We had a somehow pleasant conversation until we got to Hogwarts, Severus and I. During the time were talking, I noticed that Severus had a huge black eye, and that part of his hair had been shaven to reveal a large scar that seemed to have had the stitches taken out recently. It looked like it had been done without magic an not in St. Mungo's, where it should have been done, but probably in the Snape house's washroom. When I asked Severus what had happened, he got very cold and looked away, grunting a small "Nothing.", and becoming very stoic and detached, as if he was trying not to remember the incident during which he got those injuries. I told you his father was a madman.

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We entered the Great Hall, hearing the first years gasp at the bewitched ceiling and levitating candles. I can still remember being that young and glancing up at that enchanted ceiling for the very first time. It was so bright and happy that I was in shock. I had never seen anything like that before in my life as I had been born and raised almost entirely in Grimmauld Place. Somehow I ended up walking beside Lucius in the crowd, and I was seated next to him at the Slytherin table. I dared not look over at the Gryffindoors, because I knew Sirius would be there, laughing with his friends and look absolutely gorgeous while doing so. But, because of my terrible attitude, I looked over anyway and he was doing just as I had imagined. As I watched him, I began to think again about that night. All the questions I had to ask swam through my brain again, and I was suddenly snapped out of my thoughts by a cold hand reaching up my leg, a bit too close for comfort. His face had no expression whatsoever, but I could feel the lust radiating from Lucius' fingertips. I knew what he was trying to interpret to me- he wanted me, tonight. There was no way I was going to dare reject him, but I knew that I had to slip away somehow to meet Sirius, no matter how much I was going to be punished for it later.

When the feast was over after a long two hours of relentless leg-groping, I stood to follow the rest of the Slytherins towards our dormitories, but I obviously didn't intend to go with them. I knew Lucius wouldn't be a bother, though, since he was too busy trying to keep the first years in line. Did I mention he had been named House prefect? This was a bit of weight off my shoulders considering last year I was nearly attacked as soon as I got into my dorm room. I wasn't really sure I would be able to live up the House prefect terms, but I laughed a little as I thought about what Lucius would have to do to himself to survive those shifts of hall monitor duty late at night without anyone there to satisfy him... and he hated do all those things himself.

Ha ha, I smiled evilly as I walked down the hall and thought about it- Lucius may have looked calm and cool on the outside, but on the inside, he was a bloody sex maniac who would do anything for it if he felt he really needed to. That's why I sometimes felt that I had the power even though he was the one on top of me. Without me there below him, he would be a total wreck, and it was the same with all of his others. I was what kept Lucius going, what gave him confidence. I had the upper hand, or at least, that's what I to let myself think- I really had no idea.

When I had first entered Hogwarts, Sirius told me that if I ever needed to see him for any important reason that I didn't want anyone else to know about, then I should meet him at the One-Eyed Witch statue. We had actually never used this method of communication before because, even if there was something to talk about, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even admit the problem I had with Lucius to myself, and I would _never_ tell Sirius because, well, you can imagine what would happen, with Sirius and Lucius being bitter enemies and everything.

As I neared the room which contained the statue, I wondered how Sirius could have gotten down to meet me. Being a senior student it must have been difficult to slip away since Sirius wasn't naturally sneaky like I was. But then I realised that Remus had also been made into a House prefect, and let Sirius away. I thought maliciously about what Sirius probably had to promise to do to 'bribe' Remus into letting him off. I'm sorry to say it was envy that made me crazy. I walked into the room and peered into the dark. The moon was in its last phase before it disappeared completely, so only a bit of light shone in from the huge skylight. The small clouds that slowly moved across the sky didn't help either. I tried to listen for any sounds of breathing or anything that would tell me if Sirius was there. I stood in complete silence, waiting for any kind of sign, when I was grabbed from behind and pulled back into the shadows. The person that had me collided with the wall, and my back was pressed against them. The person's hands had me by me upper arms, and made sure I couldn't move or try to get away, "Regulus," This was Sirius whispering into my ear, and I breathed a sigh of relief, "Sirius..." I said in stoic tone, despite my position. I was used to being held this roughly, only I was usually up against the wall and not on top of the other person who was holding me.

"It wasn't a dream." Sirius whispered, answering my question before it could escape my lips. His grip loosened and his hands slid down my arms, again tightening on my wrists. He spun me around and I was startled by the look on his face. Sirius seemed thin and pale, the light of the moon shined on his eyes and I felt a fear in me that I never had before. He had no colour in his face, and the fierceness in his eyes was unrecognisable... I had never seen him like this before, not even when he was fighting with father and he certainly did not look like that in the Great hall a few moments ago. Sirius grabbed my hands and entwined my fingers with his, and as I expected, he pushed me up against the wall, and for the second time in this situation, I tensed up, knowing what was about to come. the first time I tensed up was the first time that Lucius came on to me without any warning about what he was going to do. Sirius sensed this, so he let go one of my hands and cupped my face, kissing me passionately and without and of the intensity that his body expressed.

I gave in entirely as I had before.

My shoulders dropped and I relaxed into his kiss, running my hands up the back of his neck and making him shiver. _Inexperienced_ was not a word that would describe me. He held me closer to him and moved his hand under my robes to my waist, bringing me closer still. I felt him _there _then, and I could feel my face flush. I'm not going to go into detail but I will say one thing, _Bloody Hell!_ I brought my hand up and tugged on his shirt, managing to undo the first two buttons and feeling his chest. He began kissing my neck and rubbing his hand up my spine. I forgot that he was my brother, I forgot that somebody might be watching, and I forgot about what Lucius said. If I couldn't be anybody else's besides his, I could obviously pretend to be. I was ready to let go, I was ready to lie back and let Sirius do whatever he wanted because this time I knew it wasn't a dream. This went on for around ten minutes when Sirius stopped and looked at me. It was a bit awkward for him to stop then, as both of our school robes were entirely discarded and his pants werenearly all the way off, as was my shirt. He appeared to be frightened, and he stepped back as if I was going to hurt him. I was still experiencing the aftermath of the experience, and my heart was beating faster than it ever had and I was trying to keep myself from breathing very hard. Sirius looked down and then turned away, "Regulus, we can't do this again." I squinted my eyes and straightened up, asking the most rhetoric question of my day, "What do you mean?"

"I mean this," He pointed at me and then at himself, and did it again in fast motion about three times. He looked away again and sighed. His voice was unreadable, but it sounded so much worse than it would have if he had beat me down and called me a fucking queer while doing so.

"By the way, that thing about Remus and I, isn't true. It was just something that father assumed since some big-mouth Slytherin caught the two of us drunk and snogging," Like _that _wouldn't lead father to believe that he was gay... I looked up and hadn't realised that my eyes had moved downward, "So, that's it, then?" He turned and stared at me. His face was shadowed, but I could see his eyes perfectly, and I'm sure he could see me the same way. He moved towards me and touched my face again and I looked away, an expression of clear defiance on my face.

"You're my brother, Regulus. That should be enough of a reason." I pushed his hand away and grabbed the back of his neck, forcing him down on me, making our lips collide. I felt like crying, but I would never cry in front of him, I would never let myself cry in front of anybody. Sirius pushed me against the wall and steadied himself, our mouths tearing away.

"Regulus, _stop!_" I was still trying to grab on to him, and he grabbed my shoulders, holding on with brute force, "Don't do this, you know it would never work!"

I clenched my teeth and let go of his shirt, slumping back against the wall and holding my fringe with the heel of my hand against my forehead.

"I'm sorry," I moved from under him and walked away briskly, working hard to keep my face stoic and my back straight as I most likely walked from a pleasurable experience to a sexual harassment, which is the best metaphor I could ever use to put the context of my life into words.

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I quickly walked down the hallway, feeling as though I had a rock in my chest and at any moment I was going to fall forward and smash my face on the tiles. How I wished that I could have done that, just to inflict any kind of pain. I was in the most self destructive mood of my life, and I relieved it by slamming myself into the wall by the entrance of the Slytherin dormitories instead of cutting myself. I had done that before, and when Lucius noticed that scars he knew he hadn't inflicted upon me himself, he made me bring the sharp object I had done it with to him, and every minute it took me would make my punishment 'a centimetre deeper'. Of course I had hid the ancient dagger with which I did it, and when I hide things, I make sure to hide them where _nobody _will find them, not even me. It took me about five minutes to find the dagger with the Black family crest on it, which meant that it would be dug exactly five centimetres into my back, and Lucius didn't even need to measure the distance in because he had done this all before with some other poor sod. I still have the now thin scars on my back that read _Whore _in painfully neat letters, and they will probably stay there for the rest of my life.

All the paintings were asleep, and it was a good thing, too, because all of the cheeky people in the portraits would have surly commented on what I was doing right now, and I was in no mood to be harassed by mere memories of forgotten witches and wizards painted on to ancient pieces of canvas. I punched the stone wall again and again, my hands getting more crumpled and bloody every time my knuckles hit.

_What the Hell did you expect, Regulus?!_

My eyes stung, but no tears would come out. I was starting to believe that I couldn't cry anymore.

_Did you expect him to take you in his arms and say, 'Regulus, let's run off together and never come back'? 'Let's get away from all this and live together in love and bliss forever!'? HA! Don't make me laugh!_

The blood was coming out of my knuckles in small, messy splurts now, and I took this as my cue to stop hitting the wall and get inside. I hissed the password out to the sleeping portrait that blocked the door which awoke for a second and let me in, only to fall right back asleep again. I ran to the bathroom to get some bandages and sat on the green couch to put them on. As I was wrapping up my hands, I looked up and around the Common Room and thought bitterly that this was a fantastic way to start my year off. The Slytherin Common Room was beautiful, anything silver was lined with green, and anything green was lined with silver, and anything black was lined with either of the colours aforementioned. Though the room was mystifying to look at, it had an incredibly cold atmosphere as if the snakes painted on the walls were able to come down and bite any intruders. I wondered if Salazar Slytherin had designed it himself, and whether or not what Severus told me was true.

While we were talking on the train, Severus had told me something about what he had heard from eavesdropping on his father. His father had said there was a new organisation of wizards coming about, and he said that they were calling themselves the 'Deaf Feeters' from what Severus could hear his father saying. I thought this was kind of a ridiculous name at the time, and I had to laugh when I heard it, and Severus laughed as well when he told me about it, but then returned to his story with the same severity with which he started. He told me that there were only a few of these dark wizards, but they were running about killing muggles and mudbloods (this was an acceptable word to use for muggle-borns among Slytherin company back then) all over the country, and they were all lead by a man who claimed to be the Heir of Slytherin himself. Severus told me that his father was keen on joining, considering he was one of the largest muggle-hating activists in the entire wizard community. This struck me as odd to find out at first, considering that his _wife_ was a muggle.

I thought about our conversation while I was absent-mindedly bandaging my hand; the Heir of Slytherin? Was that even possible? I mean, Slytherin had lived nearly a thousand years ago- how could somebody make that assumption that they were, in fact, related to him? There was a picture of Salazar Slytherin in the Great Hall when they still put the pictures of the House founders up. He sat on the right of Rowena Ravenclaw staring surly ahead. This was before they had created the charm to make people in paintings move, so the ancient wizards and witches were cursed forever to stay immobile. Slytherin was a handsome man, with a good face and dark hair with eyes to match. I sat while trying recollect every detail of that painting, when, "You're not wrapping your hand correctly, you know."

I nearly fell off of the chair with surprise, which happened more often than it should have. I turned around and looked Rodolphus Lestrange straight in the face and shouted, "What the bloody Hell is wrong with you?!" He covered my mouth in one smooth motion with his long-fingered hand and said calmly, "Do you want to wake everyone in the rooms up?" He paused for a moment and a look of deep thought came a cross his face then said, "You know, I don't think Lucius could get any more cross with you, so keep on shouting." He took his hand away and I asked, in a hushed tone this time, "What do you mean?"

Rodolphus jumped over the back of the couch and sat down next to me, "He was looking for you tonight, and since you weren't there, he decided to take his anger out on me." A devilish smile crossed his handsome face and he took my hand to re-bandage it, "It was pretty violent."

Rodolphus was probably one of the most masochistic people you could ever meet; he seemed to always be there was Lucius was in a bad mood, just waiting to be tied up and ravaged. When I asked him why ever he would like that sort of thing, he shrugged his shoulders and told me that he had always been like that. I think I even remember seeing him pick a fight with some older kids before I went into Hogwarts. He fought most courageously and won, but still came out with more than a few cuts and bruises, seeming very satisfied. Rodolphus would never put up a fight with Lucius, though. No way. He loved pain, and I guess that's why he later asked our cousin, Bellatrix, to marry him. I don't know what happened to her, but from what I remember, she was a real bitch.

"So, what stalled you?" I looked up and stared at him, "A fight? Or were you just hiding from Lucius?" I had to laugh at that; I had hidden from Lucius once, and only once. What I would have to endure for punishment for not showing up when he 'called upon' me was worse than showing up in the first place. "No," I said, flinching as he tightened the bandages and made the scrapes bleed a bit more, "I was..."

"Is it something to do with Sirius?" We stared each other down and he raised an eyebrow, "It is, isn't it?" Rodolphus could always read my mind, it was quite annoying, really. I snatched my hand away just as an impulse, "No!"

I said a bit too loudly, "Quiet!" Rodolphus covered my mouth in his usual melodramatic fashion, "You of all people should know how much of a light sleeper Lucius is, and if he wakes up I don't want to think about what he might to you!" I pulled his hand down and asked, "Was he really that agitated?" Rodolphus shook his head, "No, I just don't want to take any chances. Your face is much too pretty to be scarred." I had to wince at that- I didn't need any other kind of physical contact tonight, and I don't know what I'd do if Rodolphus tried anything, "What are you talking about?" Rodolphus laughed and stood up, "Nothing. Just don't stay up too late thinking about it."

That night, I barely slept at all.

I could feel water coming up to my eyes in that irritating way that makes your eyes dry even though you feel as if you're going to start crying at any second. I wasn't going to cry of course, as you were still considered a huge poofter if you were caught crying, and the boys in my room were seemingly the worst with the exception of Severus sleeping a few beds away. There was Gerard Mason, a nasty little bugger that I had socked in the jaw during third year (he hated me ever since then and made a hobby out of trying to embarrass me, which never worked). He was an annoying git that everyone wanted dead, but then everyone felt guilty to find out later in the Daily Prophet that he had been killed by one of the Unforgivable Curses... the culprit is still unknown.

Mark a point on my chart of sins.

There was also Blake Gordon, who wasn't particularly nasty or rude, but was fixed on picking on Severus for his greasy hair. Halfway through last year, he transferred from Durmstrang, which ensured popularity among the Slytherins. Of course, he had wavy light brown hair much like Lupin's, only it was always combed back in an aristocratic manner that was coupled with the upturned nose of such a person. He had been a victim of Lucius' last year, but was somehow able to get out of his grasp. Maybe he bit down too hard or something, I'm not sure, but Lucius steered clear of him. Ever since he was disbanded from Lucius' personal army of man whores, he had this strange air about him like he was up to something, and whenever he was around Lucius, Lucius would seem absolutely terrified. To see this, for me, was a marvel. Lucius kept his cool, but the skin would tighten on his face whenever Gordon was around, and he would sort of trip over his words. But what confused me most of all was that Lucius would keep glancing down on Gordon's left forearm, which was always covered. I had tried to catch a glance of what was on it, or if maybe something was wrong with it, but I could never see his exposed forearm.

I dragged myself out of bed in the early morning, knowing I wasn't going to get any sleep anyway. I dressed, struggling to get my tie straight and comb my hair correctly as to not be ragged on by any of my women professors, who always wanted me to look my best. If I walked in looking a mess, then they would usually give me one of their own hairbrushes and order em to fix it. If that isn't harassment, I don't know what is.

I walked out of the Slytherin Common Room, making sure not to wake up anybody in the Seventh Year chambers. When I walked out of the door of the castle, I couldn't have felt anymore peaceful. The sun was barely up, but there was just enough light to make the grounds seem to be painted with every shade of blue. I strode across the grass, taking in everything that I had been neglected during the summer. There was wide open space everywhere, and the cool air smelled clean. I sat down on the grass near the lake and gazed into its murky depths. There was always something swimming around down there, but right now the water looked perfectly still as if it were a solid. I just sat there, taking in everything around me. This had been a private ritual for me ever since I first came to Hogwarts and thought I saw a vampire running across the fields. I don't know why I tried to go after a vampire, but I'm glad that I tried, because this was the only place where I was actually alone and free.

But that day, that sanctity was denied. I had been sitting near the pond like I normally did, and I heard footsteps right behind me. I turned my head around to see who it was, and there was a silhouette of a boy standing right behind me, "May I join you?" he asked.

I should have said no, I should have told him to go away, but I didn't, and it was a decision I would regret for the rest of my life.

"This is an odd hour to be outside the castle, why so early?" he asked, sitting down next to me. "It's the only time of day I when I can really be alone." I answered, looking at my feet.

"Sorry, I can go if you would like."

I turned my head to look at him, and I was then stunned; he was without a doubt the best-looking guy I had ever seen. His hair was pitch black, and his skin looked as if it was made from alabaster. Dark green eyes stared out at me from almost almond-shaped eyes, and a soft smirk graced his lips.

"No, it's alright. You can stay."

With those six words, I spelled out the beginning of my end.

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	4. Influence

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**Chapter Three**

_Influence_

_No, it's alright. You can stay._

If I could go back in time and rip out my own tongue, cut it into a few pieces and then stomp it into the ground just to prevent myself from saying that, then I would without any hesitation. I had no idea who this boy was, or where he had come from. But since I had never seen him before, I guessed he was a transfer student and I wasn't about to turn away the company of somebody _that _attractive... I was such a bloody idiot.

He sat down beside me and began to speak. He spoke about everything we saw around us, and was able to explain the history of it all; from the giant squid, to the Whomping Willow, to the Forbidden Forest. How a transfer student already knew so much about the grounds of Hogwarts, I had no idea. But I did know that I was dealing with a very intelligent boy here, and I wasn't about to make myself look stupid. I counteracted his information with my own information about the castle and its history. Hogwarts was established in the year 1000 A.D. by the Four Great Wizards and blah, blah, blah. He probably knew all of this already, considering his knowledge of the outside, but he sat there politely listening to what I had to say.

"I'm probably boring you, aren't I?" The boy shook his head, "Not at all. I'm glad to see the school keeps its students so informed." I didn't know quite what to say to this, so I nodded and looked back into the murky depths.

"So, what do you think about Slytherin?" He asked in his silky smooth voice, gesturing to emblem on my robe.

"It's great," I lied, "Everyone is cool." Cool, I couldn't believe that I used the word 'cool' in front of a guy like this. I mentally slapped myself and cringed, and he laughed, seeing my discomfort.

"Liar, I bet you hate it." He said, smiling a dazzling smile and looking at me with those emerald eyes, "No, no!" I said, keeping my composure this time, "It's a great house to be in. I prefer it out of all the others."

"Why is that?" He had stopped laughing and was staring at me with one eyebrow raised. The sun had already climbed into the sky, and everybody was going to be waking up soon and going to classes. I stood up and looked towards the sun. The past twenty-four hours had been the worst in my life, and I was gazing over the peak to an absolute mental breakdown that had been holding itself in for years and years. It would have to wait a little longer, but the only reason I could think about for my likeness of Slytherin was, "No mudbloods."

The boy chuckled softly and I began to walk away. "Hold on," he said, I turned and looked at him, trying to hold back my quelling insanity, "What's your name?" He asked, not getting up, but looking at me directly. I caught a glimpse of his robes, a Slytherin badge on the chest. "Regulus," I said, smirking, "Regulus Black." He now stood and held out a hand, "Tom Riddle," he said, smiling. He was a bit taller than me, but not by much, an was probably in his seventh year. I shook his hand, and nodded, "Nice to meet you, Tom. See you later."

Tom nodded in return and I walked back to the castle doors, not looking back to see if Tom was still there smiling at me.

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The first class of the day for me was Potions. I did quite well in Potions, but not nearly as well as Severus, who excelled in every concoction he attempted. In any other class, I would have been extremely envious of him, but not in Potions. The reason for this is the fact that Severus was an honoured member of the _Slug Club_. The Slug Club was a branch of the ego of our obnoxious professor, Professor Slughorn. This man was one of the most grotesque creatures I ever encountered. He was squat, obese, and reminded me of an overweight walrus with his handlebar mustache. I'm sorry for the blatant criticism, I have no respect for people who don't respect themselves. As an afterthought, I guess I really don't have respect for myself in that case either, but at least I'm not fat and have silly-looking facial hair. Anyway, I purposely made it so my potions would not have perfect grades just so I wouldn't be invited to Slughorn's stupid get together.

Whenever Severus got back from one of those things, he always looked bewildered and exhausted, and I would light-heartedly poke fun at him for actually going to those ridiculous things. When I'd ask him why he went, he would say through the pillows that he had his face squashed in, "If I ever want to be a professor here, I have to have recommendations from the current professors." When he said this, I would say, "You? A professor? Well, maybe you can give failing grades to the kids of the people who are tough on you here. A little revenge never hurt anybody except the people who wronged you first."

The day went by smoothly; Potions, then Defense Against the Dark Arts. This was my favourite subject. I had always been interested in the Dark Arts, and wanted to learn everything I could about them. Then there was lunch, during which I avoided any contact with Sirius, afraid I might try to hex him if I did, and then Herbology leading into Transfiguration. Professor Dumbledore, the man who taught it, was a fascinating person and secretly one of my idols. His office, which I had seen only once, was filled with so many beautiful artifacts, nearly all of them cursed or charmed.

That night, my thoughts somehow strayed back to Tom. I hadn't seen him throughout the entire day, but I can't really say I was looking. I wanted to ask the seventh years about him, but I couldn't go into their dormitories without running into Lucius, whom I had successfully avoided for the extent of the day. Tomorrow, I wouldn't be so lucky.

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The next morning, I walked out early in hopes to see Tom again, but he was nowhere to be found. Not there, anyway.

If you've ever had the feeling that you keep seeing the same person in different places, and then it turns out that the person isn't really there, then you would understand the feeling I had that day. Every time I switched classes, I saw Tom's face among the students, staring at me. Whenever this happened, I turned to see that I was either staring at a blank space, a wall, or some different person altogether. When I didn't think that I had seen Tom, I still had a strange feeling as if I was still being watched by his ominous emerald eyes wherever I was. the strangest thing was, though, was Professor Dumbledore. For some reason, whenever I felt Tom around, Dumbledore would become extremely serious and look at me with the utmost severity as if I was doing something very wrong. This went on throughout the entire Transfiguration class, during which there were three incidents of me having to turn around to see if Tom was standing there, which, of course, he wasn't.

At the end of the class, Dumbledore called to me when he was done lecturing us about Mandrake Safety. I had expected this, and gathered my things and made my way to the head of class and climbed the stairs to his office.

"It seems, Regulus," Dumbledore said, "That you are barely alive when you are in my class." He gestured to a chair in front of his desk and I sat down.

"What do you mean, sir? I answer your questions just as much as any other student." I had put a pleasant smile on my face and spoke with a calm tone; this was the smile I used whenever I was trying to or was about to convince a person that nothing was wrong with me. The last thing I wanted was attention, especially at school.

"Yes, I know you do. But in the past few years, you have seemed more distracted, even when I know you are paying attention." I looked at him with feigned interest and he continued, "I had hoped that this distraction would have passed over the summer- I know how much time your mother gives yourself and your brother to think..." He said this last line with a tone as if he had tried to talk to my mother about closing us in during the summer holiday, but failed in trying to suggest that we should have time outside. This was just an assumption, but it seemed like the type of thing that Dumbledore would do, "And I was just wondering if there was something you... needed to tell me." He delivered this line as if he had said it many times before, and if i knew Dumbledore, I knew it would probably not be the last time. I looked at him in an inquisitive way and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, sir. Everything is fine with me."

Dumbledore sighed and stood out of his chair. He crossed the room and went to the window where the daylight was beginning to fade. "Regulus, if Lucius Malfoy ever... _Bothers_ you, I want you to tell me straightaway, do you understand?" At this, I lowered my chin so I could stare at him. My eyes were just as intimidating as my brother's when I wanted them to be, but I wasn't going to even attempt to psyche out Professor Dumbledore, whom I ultimately respected, even if _did _go a little to deep into my personal affairs.

"Don't worry, Professor," I said, standing, "If a problem should arise between myself and Mr. Malfoy, then I will be able to sort it out myself." Dumbledore smiled and nodded, "I'm sure you will, Regulus." I gave a small bow and walked out of the office, closing the door behind me.

I skipped dinner that night, not hungry in the slightest bit, and in need of some time to be alone. I guess the near-solitary confinement of the summer rubbed off on me, as I soon craved the desolation. I walked into the Great Hall, saw all of the students, and instantly turned on my heel to leave. The noise of all the students drove me crazy, and I naturally didn't socialise well with others. That, and I would have to face a bunch of girls trying to ask me out. Oh, I didn't mention that, did I? Apparently, I was just as desirable to the female students of Hogwarts as my brother was. Somehow my off-putting, aloof attitude towards nearly everybody just attracted the girls more... I just didn't understand it. And there was another thing that kept me out of the Great Hall; Sirius. I didn't want to face him... I couldn't. I felt as if I saw him once, I would try to kill him. I may not have been showing it, but the scenario a night before had been chewing me up inside ever since I ran from him. I felt as if something unpleasant was moving around inside my intestines like a snake in my stomach. Disgusting, I know, but that is the only way to describe it. My alternatives were to go to my dormitory and wait for Lucius or, to go back to One-Eyed Witch passageway. I chose the latter. It must have been the position of the moon or something, but I felt like being out-of-character. Normally, I would have gone straight into the Great Hall, sat down next to Lucius, and allowed him to grope my leg until he got aroused beyond his metal limits and had no choice but to drag me into his dormitory and do with me what he would.

Nah, I wanted Lucius to come and find me. I knew he would because he was angry with me, and would go to any lengths to have a piece of me like he had wanted to last night.

Well, I didn't have to wait long to be disturbed.

I had been standing in the passageway for about fifteen minutes when I heard footsteps behind me. They were soft, but they were definitely there. I decided to play coy and wait for Lucius to grab me from behind and shove me against the wall like he normally did. I just waited for him to grasp my wrist and nearly break it in lust...

"Well, this is quite an odd place to have dinner, isn't it?"

I whipped around, recognising the voice, but not expecting it, "Tom?" A thin figure walked out of the shadows and revealed itself to be Tom, and this time I wasn't hallucinating.

"Yes, it's me. I noticed you run out of the Great Hall and wondered what was the matter, so I came to find out." I shook my head and smiled, "Nothing's wrong, I just don't like large noisy crowds."

Tom nodded and looked down, averting his eyes, "Parental influence?" He asked, his eyes darting upward at me. I was a bit taken aback; the eyes that had formerly looked so green now seemed to be a brown colour, intensifying the alluring and mesmerising effect that they had upon me. I didn't let this show in my face, of course, but I think it may have come out in my voice, "No," I stammered, "I just don't like that type of thing." I said after steadying my tone. Tom had really hit the nail on the head in a big way when he asked if it was parental influence that drove me into my own company, but I was an accomplished liar, and he seemed convinced.

"Oh, alright, then." Tom smiled and looked up at the moon, which was now a crescent shape, "I don't like large crowds either." he said, "I'd much rather be alone with one person or just by myself than in a group of people." I think Tom might have been having a moment of clarity because we just sat there for a moment in silence; him looking up at the moon, and me looking at him and noticing how he looked when the moonlight illuminated his face. Tom was pale to begin with, but with this light shining on him, he looked like a ghost, a past memory of somebody forgotten not so long ago.

This moment ended within a few seconds, but seemed to last an hour. Tom looked down at me, his face now shadowed. "I'll see around, Regulus." I jumped at the sound of his voice, and he turned and left, disappearing back into the dark.

"Hey," I said, before he was completely gone. Tom stopped and turned, looking at me with that same charming smile, and i suddenly forgot why I had called him back, "What year are you in?" I asked, saying the first thing that had come to mind.

"Seventh," he answered with a bit of a chuckle behind his voice. I nodded, giving the impression that I understood. Tom made a slight bow, and then vanished.

I sat there for moment, just thinking of what I had seen; when his face was illuminated, he looked positively heavenly, but when his faced had shadows all around it, he looked, for lack of a better word, _evil_. My thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the direction in which Tom had vanished, a voice which I was less than inclined to hear.

"Who were you talking to, Regulus?"

This was going to be a _long _night.

"No one," I said, casting Lucius a condescending look. I wasn't about to tell him about Tom, because they were probably both in the same class and Lucius would seek him out.

"No one?" Lucius asked, a coy smile on his face as he moved towards me, "I swear I just heard you ask somebody what year they were in, and then they answered you."

"You must have been hearing things." I said, looking away and not realising that I was backing into the wall as Lucius came nearer.

"No, I'm quite sure I wasn't." He was standing right in front of me now, and I could see him eye-to-eye. I must have been going through a growth spurt at that time, because he definitely look shorter than he was back in Knockturn Alley a week or so before. Nevertheless, his cold grey eyes were still just as frightening as they had been then, and I could already feel myself deteriorating under their stare.

"Are you sure you're not hiding anything from me, Regulus?" Lucius asked as he caressed my hair, which I can shamefully admit felt really good, "Yes, Lucius. I'm not hiding anyone." I said this in a slightly bored voice as if I was getting sick of the question, which I was. Well, this seemed to be enough of an answer for Lucius. He stopped playing with my hair and cupped my face, forcing his lips onto mine. I was prepared for this, and I could feel my lips starting to bruise already, so I gave him what he wanted; I opened my mouth in the tiniest bit and his tongue slid in. I learned not to struggle against Lucius on his first foray when I earned myself a shiner in third year for trying to push him off (yes, this had been going on for three years now). The spell I used to try to cover it wasn't strong enough, and I couldn't go to the infirmary without the Madam Pomfrey noticing all of the small red spot and bite marks on my neck. So, I had to go around for an entire week and explain to each and every Professor that I had fallen out of bed, hit my eye on the side table, and needed no medical attention.

The one lesson that experience taught me was to not defy Lucius when he's just starting up, which was what he was doing now. He moved his tongue around in my mouth and I struggled with my own tongue only a small bit, just to egg him on. It did the trick, he was soon grabbing at my ass and bringing our bodies together. This was when I realised that I was not in the mood for this; I didn't feel like getting it on tonight, and even if I did, it certainly wouldn't have been with Lucius, the bastard.

I broke out the euphoria that the kiss had put me in (Lucius _was _a good kisser), and put my hands on his chest, "_Stop..._" I said, breathing in. But Lucius didn't listen and tried to advance on me again, and I pushed him off completely, "_Christ, Lucius! Don't you ever know when to stop?!_" I said this loud enough just to get my point across, but not loud enough so passers-by would be able to hear it. I must have left Lucius in shock for a moment, considering I had the time to make it a few feet towards the door before I was pulled back my the robe on my hood and slammed against the wall.

"I'm getting sick of your attitude, Regulus," Lucius hissed, his grip tightening on my wrist. I may have gotten taller, but Lucius was still stronger than me, "First you blow me off and leave me to Rodolphus, and then you disappear for a week." I just looked away with an annoyed look on my face as he breathed hot air on me as he spoke, "What have you been doing, Regulus? Or, should I ask, _who _have you been doing?!"

That was enough. I whipped my head around and shouted loudly in Lucius' face, "_FUCK YOU!_"

I felt a sharp blow on the right side of my face, and I was hurled to the cold stone ground of the passageway. I barely had the time to see if anything was broken or out of place, for I was wrenched upward by my arm and forced to walk out of the passageway.

I knew no teeth were broken, but my mouth was definitely bleeding. My head was spinning, that punch _really hurt!_ I could hear people asking Lucius if I was alright as we passed them in the hallways, and he answered, "Yeah, he just tripped and fell." Obviously, Lucius had never been crossed like that by anybody in his life, except for Sirius, of course. And that's probably why he hit me so hard; because he saw a piece of Sirius in me and it frightened him. I only had the time to contemplate this later because I was dragged into the Slytherin Common Room, up the stairs, and into Lucius' bedroom. Lucius had his own room because his family was wealthy enough to pay for it, and Lucius liked his privacy. Sirius and I could have gotten separate rooms from the other students, but since Sirius didn't, I didn't either because I always followed Sirius back then.

Lucius' room was the traditional Slytherin room: black and green velvet with silver lining, all the mouldings on the walls carved into snakes, et cetera, et cetera. I really hated these colours, and they were so overused. But I couldn't really see them at this point. My vision was still blurry and all I knew was that I was being pushed down on the bed and my pants were being taken off. I tried to fight back once more, but was punched again, this time on the other side of my face. I shouted in pain as I felt the bruise developing around my eye, and my mouth was then covered by Lucius' lips.

I really did _not _ want to go through this again, so I pushed Lucius' face off and made a run for the door, not even noticing or caring that my pants were nearly half down and my robe was still cast aside. I touched the doorknob and was then pulled back, this time by the collar of my shirt.

"Regulus! Just calm down!" Lucius held me in a secure but tight grasp, and I was pressed against his chest, my arms folded against him in a way that I couldn't struggle. He cupped my face with both hands and stared at me with those scary grey eyes.

"You are mine, Regulus," I had regained my vision at this point, and I could see the intensity in his face, "There is nothing you can do about that." Lucius said this through clenched teeth and then kissed me with such ferocity that I felt like I was going to melt. I was the property of Lucius. This was the way it had been for three years, and this is the way it was probably going to be for the rest of the year as well. This is the way it was. I could no longer fight him, I was giving in, but then, I saw Sirius' face in the back of my mind, and fought back. This was in vain, because I was just forced against the bed again, my arms held high over my head and my legs spread far apart while I continued to be ravaged again and again. I just laid back and took it, imagining that I was somewhere else, somewhere with Sirius.

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	5. Brought In

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**Chapter Four **

_Brought In_

I was bruised and nearly broken the next day, and not in a very good mood.

I couldn't get out on the green to talk to Tom because I was repeatedly getting rammed up the ass by that damn bastard Lucius for the near-entirety of the night. By morning while he was lying there all shagged and fagged, I was in pain. Not in the the emotional kind of pain like I should have been, but in real agonising physical pain. It was so bad that I thought I was going to vomit, and the thought that I had just been viciously raped didn't help it either. My face was sore and most likely purple, my lips were puffy and my eyes were red from lack of sleep.

Being somebody's property was awful, but there was nothing I could do to get out of it. Yesterday was a Friday, marking the end of the first week of school, so we had today off. This meant I would probably be lying in bed with Lucius until noon if he woke up, and I didn't want to go through what I had gone through last night all over again, so I waited for Lucius to roll over and take his arm off of me, and then I jumped up, put my clothes on, and rushed out of the room, being careful as to not wake my 'master' from his goddamn blissful slumber... fucker.

There wasn't anybody in the Common Room; they were probably all down at breakfast, so I had no problem scaling across the giant room with my shirt open and my pants half down, carrying the rest of my clothes in a bundle in one arm. I walked briskly as to not waste time in the case that Lucius would wake up, follow me, and then drag me back into his room. I shuddered just to think about it. The first shag of the year was always the worst; I had recuperated from all of the beatings and assaults on my personal being over the summer, and then I returned back to school just to be traumatised again... but I wouldn't let anyone else ever know that it had the effect on me that it did. Everybody in the Slytherin House, save for the new first years, knew that I was Lucius' number one whore, and they didn't tell anybody or make a big deal out of it. This was because they were all connected in a way that one of them had slept with another (excluding Severus, of course), and then that one had slept with someone else, and so on and so forth. So, in theory, they had really all had sex with each other, and they knew it. They were all okay with that because not one Slytherin had not had some kind of sexually dishonouring thing done to them in the past. Sad, I know, but that's the way it was in those days.

I just hope Lucius doesn't treat his son I've heard so much about as badly as he treated me.

There was no one in my room, thankfully, so I dressed with caution, making sure not to irritate my really sore parts (like my face and my inner thighs). After I was fully clothed, I went into the dormitory bathroom to survey the damage. My face didn't look as bad as I thought it would or as bad as it had been before, but it was still purple and swollen enough to draw attention. I took my wand and whispered a charm to conceal it, tapping the tip of my wand on the tender skin and making me wince. The bruises were gone, but their impact was still in full effect. I couldn't really talk or move my mouth, so I doubted I would be able to chew anything without hurting myself. I looked at my wrists to find that they had red marks around them where Lucius kept grabbing, and just pulled the sleeves of my shirt down to cover those. If nobody saw them, then nobody would ask questions.

This was a part of my life- the sneaky sex scandals with school mates were part of my adolescence, and I would have done anything to escape from them. The thought of telling Dumbledore that Lucius was _bothering_ me passed my mind once or twice, but then I shooed the thought away- that would probably be one fo the stupidest and most embarrassing things I could ever do. Just the mere thought of walking into Dumbledore's office and spilling my guts about everything that had been going on for the past three years my my stomach lurch. I knew that a smart man like Dumbledore wouldn't really expect me to talk to him about his sort of thing, so why would he ask me to tell him? And then that thing where he asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell him; did he mean anything about Lucius, or... I was too burnt out to be thinking about this right then.

I walked down the spiral marble staircase from my dormitory and moved to the bookshelf. I really didn't have any intention of going down to breakfast or lunch, or reading for that matter, so why I was at the bookshelf is now a complete mystery to me. I suppose it was just out of habit, but that has nothing to do with what I'm trying to talk about. I'm sorry, I've gone without any food for three days because I'm afraid the food that the people here are giving me is poisonous, and I've been refusing to eat it. I think I'm becoming delirious; it happens when i don't get any sleep and stay up in this awful cell day in and day out writing this final memoir about my life but, hey, the story must go on.

"Regulus, shouldn't you be down at breakfast?" I cringed, I thought I was hearing Lucius' voice, so I turned to retort, only to find myself staring into the face of Tom Riddle.

I was taken aback for a moment, but I'm not really sure why. Tom was a Slytherin, as I remembered, so why shouldn't he be in the Slytherin Common room?

"No, I was never much one for breakfast," I said, somehow not being able to look at Tom's face. I had always been able to survey his face with ease, his features being more than just aesthetically pleasing, but for some reason when I looked at him now, he seemed to be a ghost. His face was alabaster, and seemed as though a dark light was radiating off of him. His expression was clear and friendly, just as it always was, but there was something mischievous in his smile, and a glint in his eye I couldn't quite recognise... he was more attractive than I had ever seen him before.

"Oh," he said, nodding, "I have the feeling that it's not so much that you're not breakfast person, if you have the same appetite as your brother," Sirius was a _big _eater, "Just that it's you were not_ released _early enough to come down."

The glint in his eye flickered for only a second, and then died down again.

I tensed up, ready to blow a piercing comeback that I gave to every single one of my few classmates who tried to patronise me for getting forcibly banged by Lucius, but I couldn't seem to retort. Tom was just so, so _polite _in the way of insulting me. And, also, he was a new student, and didn't fully grasp the situation. So, I returned with just simple, "Ha, I guess you're right." And a shrug of my shoulders. But then the beautiful newcomer Tom went just a bit too far.

"You know, you don't have to be his slave... being a man-whore isn't a great way to go through life." He was just trying to be helpful, I know that now, but then I was secretly hot-headed, and even though Tom was just getting a grasp of my problem (well, he actually hit it right on the head), he was diving into something that really wasn't any of his business, and I_ hated_, and still hate it, when people pry into other people's private affairs.

"Tom, _don't ever-_" I was cut off by his soft but controlling voice, "I know a better way to live, Regulus." I stared at him, his gorgeous face tipped towards the ground, making the dark fringe cover his eyes. This made him look even _more _like a ghost, and a creepy ghost at that. He stayed like that for a moment, just letting his words take an effect on me. My muscles loosened, and I went out of defensive mode, waiting to hear more.

"How would you like living in a position where people would never _bother_ you?" He put the emphasis on the word 'bother' so perfectly that it sounded like he had been in the room with Dumbledore and I during our conversation, "Where people would never patronise you, annoy you... or rape you?" I was interested now, but I didn't show it. The congenial tone that had laced Tom's voice before had gone, and an intense near-growl was now coming out from beneath that veil of black hair as he walked, more so _glided_, across the floor towards me, coming very close. I was intimidated, but not frightened, and I didn't let either of these emotions effect my features. I was getting quite good at that.

"Or, what about being in a position..." As Tom spoke, he leaned forward so that his lips were right near my neck. His cold breath blew on the skin there, making me shiver and breaking my whole aloof motif while I anticipated the end of his sentence, "...Where your brother would love you in the way you want him to?"

Tom's eyes flashed up, and were no longer a dark brown, but a bright scarlet. His pupils were slit like a snake's and it looked as if he had grown fangs. I only saw his face for a split second, because he closed his lips over mine viciously, and, having been in this position before, I shut my eyes tight. I let myself get caught up in the kiss, but then I began to lose breath, and broke off gasping for air. I got about two breaths in, but then Tom was at it again.

"You want Sirius to touch you like _this_, Regulus?" He pulled my shirt out of its tucked-in position in my pants and then delved his hand up and started massaging my chest in one fast motion. I gasped, not from the sudden contact, but because of the fact that this was _Tom_, and because, well... it felt good. My breathing started to get heavier as his hand roamed across my abdomen, and I leaned against the bookshelf.

"What about _this_ way?" Tom hissed, putting one of his legs in between mine and running his hand up my leg, alternating the movements between my chest and my backside like currents. He kissed my neck and sucked on it, probably adding more hickeys on top of the ones I had previously received from Lucius. Three buttons were magically undone at the top of my shirt when tom brought his lips to mine again, quickly snaking his tongue into my mouth and feverently moving it about. He undid my tie and through it off to the side, and did the same with my robe. I was scared and excited during the same instance, kind of like how I felt my first time with Lucius.

Strangely, I was instantly reminded of Sirius; this was the exact feeling I had when I was with him. It was the same fervid experience that clouded my mind and sent my blood going down you-know-where. I'm sorry, I don't like to make a big statement out of anatomy. But I was beginning to rise in that part, but was then pushed down again by Tom's leg, which only made it more rebellious. At this point, I removed my hands from their clenched position on the bookshelf and put my hands forward; one on Tom's chest, and one running through his hair. he seemed to like that, because, he too shivered and kissed me more passionately.

This groping session went on for about five minutes, so close to shagging it was unbearable. The sun was high in the sky now, and so was I... I'm sorry, that was vulgar- forget that last statement, but it's pretty much truthful what I said right there. I had never had such a panhandle in my life, not even when I was with Sirius. Tom must have done this before a thousand times, to a thousand different people. But, unlike when I was with Lucius _or _Sirius, I didn't feel like I was in control. For the first time in my life, in this situation anyway, I felt like I was being controlled.

"Sound intriguing, Regulus?" Tom asked in broken breaths, breaking our umpteenth violent kiss. His eyes had turned back to brown and his fangs had disappeared, so I concluded that I had probably just imagined it, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

Both of us, I'm somehow proud to say, were practically in the early stages of an orgasm. My face was hot, and probably all red. I was breathing rapidly, and I could feel my lungs trying to keep up with the fast beating of my heart. I felt like my insides were going to pour out, the feeling was so intense. It was like sex only without intercourse. My shirt was practically all the way off, my hair was disheveled, and my pants were unbuttoned as well as unzipped. Tom was practically a mirror image, but seemed a bit calmer, which was, in retrospect, not really that calm at all. Only a few buttons were undone on his shirt, and his green and silver tie still hung around his neck- untied, though. His black robe was hanging off of his shoulders, and his belt was undone, which was my doing. His hair of course was quite messy, which was also my doing. And although he didn't want to show it (trust me, he was trying _really _hard), he was unspeakably aroused as well. I seemed to have that effect on people.

"Well, that was..." Tom began, then clearing his throat for being at a loss for words, then starting again, "Regulus, there is something I have to speak with you about," he had regained his natural composure, "A proposition, if you will, and I would be very pleased if you could come." As he spoke, I collected my self and steadied my heart rate, "Here is the location of the meeting," Tom said, holding out a piece of folded parchment. I went out to grab it, my clothes were all back in their proper place, but Tom took a step forward and pinned me against the wall once more. He was gentle, but firm.

"_Don't tell anyone, Regulus,_" Tom whispered into my ear, and then looked me up and down, "_I hope you can come, I _really _do..._"

With that he gave me one last kiss and swiftly moved out the Common Room, leaving me with a piece of folded parchment in my hand and incredibly horny. I bowed my head and sighed, somehow feeling angry. I walked over to the couch and sat down, leaning my head back and allowing myself to cool down. As soon as I was done with that, I looked at the piece of parchment, daring my self to open it. It must have been good news if Tom was so, um, _enthusiastic_ about it. But I still had this sinking feeling in my stomach as if I was about to open Pandora's box. Yes, I am familiar with muggle mythology. Actually, they were sometimes relevant to the lessons taught in Hogwarts, but never mind that. I leaned forward over the table, taking the packet in my hand and unfolding it. To my wasted anticipation, there was not a word written on the parchment. I breathed out an exasperated breath and set the parchment on the table, glaring at it as I fell back into the comfortable cushions of the couch.

"Damn it," I cursed as I covered my eyes with the heels of my hands. Then, I heard a crackling noise, as if a fire was somewhere nearby. I looked down to find that there was a small green flame erupting from the piece of parchment. The flames danced devilishly as I struggled to get my wand out of my robes, finding that it was not in my pockets, but over by the bookshelf where it had fallen out. By the time I had jumped over the back of the couch, retrieved my wand, and began to speak (moreover shout) an incantation to put out the fire, the flames had already died. Though they were gone, a thin white wisp of smoke rose from the parchment, and I cautiously picked it up. On the yellowed parchment were letters in green scripture reading,

_Room of Requirement_

_Monday Night, 8:15_

I had barely the time to read it when somebody shouted angrily from behind me, "Regulus! Where the hell did you find that?!" I whipped my head around and saw Rodolphus staring down at me with a frustrated look on his face.

"Did you go looking through my things?!" He barked, baring the most frightening facial expression I had ever seen on him. For a moment I just sat there, in a bit of a shock, but then I came to and said, "No, I only got this today!"

"Ha!" Rodolphus said, squinting his eyes at me, "And I suppose that Tom Rid-" Rodolphus clamped his hand over his mouth and his eyes grew wide. I just continued to stare at him, "Tom Riddle?" I asked. Rodolphus sighed and nodded, then sat down on the couch beside me.

"Sorry, I was just surprised that Tom gave _you_ one of those as well." He didn't look at me as he spoke, his eyes glancing towards the ground.

"What do you mean?" I asked, noticing how he had put emphasis on the word 'you'.

"I meant... Well, I thought I was the only one." He pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment with green writing on it that I instantly recognised as Tom's. Rodolphus had sort of a sad look on his face, but then it went away as quickly as it showed up. I felt sorry for him for some reason, but I really didn't know why. My mind quickly returned to the note, and I began to ponder: Who _was _Tom Riddle, and what was he going to tell Rodolphus and I when we met him in the Room of Requirement on Monday.

Another thing I had to ponder was what in the world is the Room of Requirement, anyway?

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Monday was a miserable day... The weather was dark and gloomy, and it seemed as though the mood of every person in the castle (including the mood of each ghost) reflected that. I finally got up the courage to eat in the Great Hall, and, to my complete dismay, the ceiling was a depressing charcoal grey. I sat there with a somber expression on my face as I chomped on some random breakfast material I had just happened to pick up.

I thought about the identical notes that Rodolphus and I had gotten from Tom, and had to wonder about them. Why had _we_ specifially gotten those notes, and why was Rodolphus so upset when he had seen that I had received one as well? The only conclusion that I could come to was that... Well, Rodolphus had fallen in love with Tom, and the note that Tom gave him seemed to be a token of affection to Rodolphus.

This, to me, seemed very _very _ stupid.

From the moment that I met Tom, I knew he was dangerous. I also knew that he was not to be toyed with, but my plan to try to resist him was, as you know, _thwarted_. But now I realised that it was Tom who was toying with _me_, and that I should have stuck with my plan, the plan that really didn't exist in the first place. I knew something was coming, I just didn't know what. Some large event was about to take place and I knew in my gut that it wasn't exactly a good thing, but I wanted all of the things that Tom was talking about. Namely, I wanted power, and freedom from the people and rules that bound me. This is what everybody wants; _freedom_. But as a warning to people who desire this, think it over before you jump at the opportunity for extreme freedom, because you may end up like me: starving, slowing going insane, and held by the exact man who promised you liberty. But I'm rambling... It sometimes happens when you're in my position.

In the Great Hall, everybody around me was talking, laughing, living, except me. As I've said, it was the first time I had been in the Great Hall for awhile, so I was a bit sensitive to all the noise. I looked over and saw Sirius sitting with Wormtail, James and Remus were absent. Wormtail (you'll notice that I call him Wormtail, and this is because I find it much too respectful to the bastard to call him by any other name) was looking the mousy and jumpy as he always did, but Sirius looked different. He was leaning against the table with a perplexed look on his face, and his eyes were more intense than they usually were. He was twiddling something in his fingers, something small and light brown.

"Regulus!" Somebody thumped me on the back and sat down beside me, "I didn't expect you to eat in here again." It was James and Remus, and they seemed happy to see me, which was odd, especially for Remus. There was no doubt that Sirius had told him about my suspicions, and for him to be able to sit next to me and smile after that was beyond forgiveness.

"So, do you know what's up with Wormtail and Padfoot, then?" James asked, squinting his eyes at me and gesturing to the two, "No, I have no idea."

"They both got these odd notes yesterday," Remus said, "James saw them. The notes told them to be in the Room of Requirement tonight at eight fifteen. Do you know anything about this?" I looked back and forth between the two boys, starting to get a bit annoyed, "Why are you asking me?"

James and Remus looked at each other and I could feel uncomfortable tension between the two of them rising. I kept my eyes fixed on Remus, because it was him I was originally asking, but James decided to answer my question, "The note seemed like- like something bad," there was a bit of hesitation in his voice as he spoke, which was unusual for James, "And, since you're in _Slytherin_, we thought that you might know something about it."

Now I was really annoyed, "What, something goes wrong, and I'm instantly questioned for it because I'm in Slytherin?"

"No, Regulus, it's not like that," Remus said, shaking his head, " We're just-"

"Worried about you," James finished for Remus, putting his hand on my shoulder, "And Sirius and Wormtail." I was shocked by this- I had never expected genuine concern from any of my brother's friends, but here it was.

"We know everything about Sirius and you. He told us what happened on the first day of school and before Diagon Alley," Remus said in a low voice, "And we just want to you to know that it's okay- we don't care about that. All we want to know is if anything dangerous is happening. We know Sirius won't tell us, and Peter seemed too afraid to, so we need you to inform us in the event of anything serious going on. Alright?"

My eyes were blurring with rage; I couldn't _believe _Sirius told him about all that. I don't know what was stopping me from going up to Sirius right there in front of all the professors and socking him right in the jaw. But there would be time to go after him later. i swallowed my anger for now and turned my attention back to James and Remus, who were still awaiting my answer.

"Yeah," I agreed, "Sure. If there's anything dangerous going on, I'll tell you." James and Remus nodded and smiled, "Alright," James said, "Good, we'll see you around, then." They began to get up, but I stopped them and asked where the Room of Requirement was, and James gave me directions on how to get there. When he was done, he leaned down and whispered into my ear, "And don't look now, but Annette Trippett is looking at you." Instinctively, I whipped my head around and looked, "You've somehow gotten more popular with the girls in your absence, Regulus." James added, "I don't know how you do it." When Annette noticed me looking at her, she blushed and looked down, smiling. She wasn't a bad-looking girl, but I didn't have the time or patience to tell her I just wasn't interested. And I also didn't feel like telling her that I was interested in my brother, whom I currently wanted to cruciate. But I would just have to wait a few more hours, when I saw him at the meeting.

It was five minutes to eight o' clock, and I still had absolutely no idea where the Room of Requirement was. I knew that Hogwarts was gargantuan, but not _this _gargantuan. The farthest I had been up in the castle before was one time in second year when I had to hide on the third floor. I won't tell you why I had to hide, I'll just tell you that it was urgent, and I was willing to break the rules of the Restricted Section of the library. Unfortunately, I was caught by the new caretaker, Argus Filch, and held by my ankles in the dungeons. Needless to say, when my mother got word of this, that tradition was ended in Hogwarts forever. Ironically, after that I had unlimited access to the Restricted Section of the library. This would prove to be very useful in the days to come.

I was now on the seventh floor, and I had no idea which way I was going. This taught me never to ask James for directions again. He knew that the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor, _that _he told me he was sure of. As for the rest, I was quite sure he had made that all up. The way he had explained the directions to me, I was instructed to walk past the tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls how to dance for the ballet about three times before I got to the Room of Requirement. I had no idea why I had asked James for directions in the first place; I had remembered Sirius telling me never to trust James' navigational skills. This was one thing that I could trust Sirius on right now, considering what _HE_ _HAD TOLD REMUS AND JAMES AND PROBABLY PETER_... But I couldn't think about that right now for running the risk of magically lighting that stupid ancient tapestry on fire out of frustration. While I let my rage slide off, I thought about what the Room of Requirement must look like. If there were more people coming besides Sirius, Wormtail, Rodolphus and I, then I would have assumed that there would be a lot of chairs, especially Tom's charm was as seductive as I had portrayed it to be.

I had walked by the tapestry twice now, and it was eight o' clock. I expected it to be dimly lit, with probably green and black all over the place. I would roll my eyes if I was right. And then, I remembered, Sirius was going to be there. I was not going to openly lash out at him like I wanted to; it just wouldn't be professional in a meeting-like atmosphere, and I would rather take Sirius aside and hex him after. It would be a really nasty hex, too, probably something that would make him go bald... No, I was thinking too small. But I knew I was going to do something awful as soon as I thought of it. had walked past the tapestry for the third time, and now I was really annoyed. Now I was going to late for the meeting I was personally invited to, and thus far I would appear unreliable to somebody I really wanted to impress... Tom as well as Sirius. I had changed since the incidents with Sirius and I, and I intended to show Sirius that I was not dependent on him like I had been in earlier years. He didn't captivate my mind any longer... This only happened on occasion.

I was about to take another time around and pass the tapestry a _fourth_ time, but I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a door that had appeared on the wall opposite the tapestry. Now, I knew that I wasn't as mentally stable or healthy as I should have been (for the record, that situation has gotten worse), but I _knew _that that door hadn't been there before, but I knew that due to its mysterious appearance, it had to be something to do with Tom. It just seemed to suit him to hold a meeting in a secret room on a deserted floor of the castle. Here, I took the last moment of clarity I would ever have again. My mind dwindled back and forth between the decision to go back to the Slytherin Common Room, or go into the mysterious room in the mysterious corridor across from the ridiculous tapestry. I chose the latter, as you probably guessed, but now I wish to God that I hadn't.

I grasped the doorknob, which was ice cold and engraved with a snake entwined around it, and held on to it for a single moment. I closed my eyes, somehow knowing that this meeting and what I might encounter during it was going to have a large effect on my life. In retrospect, the door was some kind of message to me; its foreboding aura and snakelike designs should have been a warning to turn around and never look back. But, unfortunately, this tacky and annoyingly obvious metaphor wasn't evident to me back then, and doesn't do me a damn bit of good now. So, now that I'm done ranting, back to the story.

I opened my eyes and turned the knob, and the door swung open, revealing a room nearly the size of the Great Hall. I stood aghast for a moment, just marveling at the size of it. How could a huge room like this not be noticed by the entire school, even though it was all the way up on the second floor? I looked around and saw a few dozen columns of ancient-looking chairs in the dim light of the room, half of them being filled with nearly every Slytherin student in the upper years. Unfortunately, this included Lucius. But I figured that if I ignored him, he probably wouldn't make a big scene in a place like this. I moved about and found a chair, sitting down and scanning the room. I saw many people that I recognised there; Rodolphus was there, of course, Lucius and many his friends were there, and I also saw Severus sitting up at the front. This I didn't really expect, but then when I thought about it, it sort of made sense; as much as I don't like to admit it, Severus was always pounded on by his father and then ignored by his mother. He would come back with horror stories that I could always somehow coax out of him, and then had to deal with the after-effect of Severus not talking to me for days.

I could understand his desire for power.

As I looked around the room some more, I noticed that many of the people here I had heard stories about from Lucius. Stories about abusive parents, childhood trauma, things like that. And it was reliable information, too, because Lucius knew nearly everything about everyone in the Slytherin house, and when he was in a talkative mood I just had to sit back and listen. But the funny thing was that Lucius had never told me about his family. I _knew _that the Malfoy clan was messed up, very close to our family in the mental illness department, but never really thought to ask Lucius about his family. The way Lucius was, though, I expected there to be some kind of abuse going on. Otherwise, Lucius wouldn't act the way that he did, and he wouldn't be at this meeting.

As I was looking around, I spotted Sirius and Wormtail. I had just noticed Sirius, but he had already been looking at me, and it seemed like he had been staring for a long time. The look on his face was a mixture between anger and regret with a hint of sorrow. He probably didn't want to see his younger brother in a place like this, with all of these shady characters lounging about. He whispered something to Wormtail, who nodded distractedly and then continued to look nervously around the room at all of the 'scary Slytherins'. Sirius stood up and walked towards me, and I looked in the other direction, feeling the temperature in my forehead rise.

Sirius stood by a chair next to me and asked, "Can I sit down?" I looked at him and raised my eyebrows, hoping he knew that that was a sign to be cautious when talking to me at this point, "Yeah, you can sit down." My voice had taken on a subtle hostility that I didn't recognise, but Sirius sat down, regardless. We sat there for a moment in silence, both not wanting to say anything, but Sirius knew he had to start, or else I wouldn't say a word.

"Look, Regulus. I've been trying to talk to you, but you've gotten difficult to find these days, and-"

"Why do you think that is?" I asked, cutting in on what he was saying. He hesitated for a bit, and then said, "I don't know. You're mad at me or something?"

"_Or something?_" I repeated, looking at him and narrowing my eyes. This was the best trait I got from my mother; my eyes. One of my relatives once described them as 'eyes that could pierce dragon scales'. Of course, this was after my fourth birthday party when my cousin Bellatrix (who was also in the meeting room near Lucius) found it hilarious to pour pumpkin juice on me and then ran away crying when I glared at her for it.

"Okay, okay." Sirius said, visibly taken aback by the stare, "I know you're mad at me, but I didn't expect you to drag it out _this_ long."

I leaned forward and balanced my elbows on my knees, then began to speak in business-like tone, "Sirius, I was over that. I was _way _over that until James came up to me this morning and told me that you told both him and Remus about what happened between us before Diagon Alley, and the first night of school. Now, I would like nothing more than to cruciate you for divulging such secrets."

Sirius had a shocked look on his face and was about to say something when the entire room went silent, and Tom rose at the front, looking more ghostly than he ever had.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	6. Beginning of the End

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter Five**

_Beginning of the End_

Many of the students stopped talking as Tom rose ominously at the front. The young man commanded a lot more respect than he let show. But, what else could I have expected? This was _Tom_, the mysterious and magnificent god that appeared in our school one autumn's eve, and somehow seduced all of the students in this room a few month's time. Alright, maybe I'm exaggerating with the whole _mysterious and magnificent god_ thing, but that is pretty much how I (and probably nearly every person in that room) felt.

The room steadily quieted until the last murmur of cut-off conversation vanished, and Tom raised his head, uncovering his eyes from his fringe as he did that day when he seduced me, and he began to speak in a wistful yet confident voice, "Fellow students, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for attending this meeting, as what I have to say to you will most likely be, if not more so, as appealing as what I promised you all when I invited you here." Tom's voice was magically amplified (or perhaps not), and as he spoke, his powerful voice cast a shadow over every over-confident student in the room who had even once strutted about with an arrogant air in their step. Next to Tom, Sirius and Lucius looked like ducks that would quack loudly, advertising their glossy feathered as they used their webbed feet to move.

I had to smile a bit and fight back as laugh as I envisioned two mallard ducks, one with silver head feathers and the other with black, walking around and quacking. This brief example of my increasingly odd sense of humour was interrupted by Tom starting up again, "But, these rewards of which I spoke will not be given easily." His voice dropped and his eyes became shadowed, making them larger and brighter then they ever seemed before.

"If you choose to join me on this very dangerous mission, many of you might be killed, and I'm _sure _that all of you that do join _will kill_.

"Fellow students of Hogwarts; for centuries, our kind has been hunted down and destroyed by muggles. Burned, hung, and eventually shot with non-magical weapons called _guns_, witches and wizards alike have been persecuted by muggles for their magical power. The muggles document this as 'defeating evil'. Well, I believe that these deaths could have been avoided by way of force. If our kind had just... _fought back_ when they were supposed to, our kind would not be reduced to what we are today.

"Our kind is now forced to hide in the shadows, hated and feared by the muggles. We cower in our passageways, in our secret rooms as we are continually hunted by the muggles, whom we are not allowed to use our magic against. And why is that? Because it would 'expose our kind'. Well, our kind had already been exposed! With all the mudbloods pouring into this school every year, it is no wonder that our society is deteriorating!" There was a whisper of agreement amidst the students, and I looked at Sirius out of habit. Though every student in the room seemed interested, Sirius had a look of disdain on his face. I shifted my eyes to Lucius, who was looking up at Tom with that evil smirk on his face. He suddenly looked at me and his face darkened, and i whipped my head around once more to listen to Tom again.

"I say that we should _change _the rules! We should rise up above the muggles! We have more power than them, so why don't we use it? Why should _we_ fear _them_?" The intensity in the room was rising to dangerous level. People were getting excited about this. I had heard this 'magical dominance' speech from my mother before, but it had never sounded this powerful.

"They're _weak_, and should be treated as such! Because of their genetic inferiority, they are the reason that we have squibs and mudbloods in our society! Though the muggles once had a general idea about witches and wizards, but now our kind is long since forgotten. Back then, they used to fear us, and with good reason. Now, they dress up as us on Halloween! I say we go after the muggles and destroy them as they nearly destroyed us and take back the world that is rightfully ours!"

The room erupted into cheers and hoots from the students. I was shocked: Tom was usually quiet and reserved (except when he was snogging somebody), and here he was giving a motivated speech about killing off muggles. I didn't really know what to think about all this. I never really thought that deeply about the whole wizard versus muggle thing- I only heard my family talking about it. But the way that Tom spoke about it, it sounded like a really serious issue that needed to be resolved- _by force_ if necessary.

"Are you _mad_?!" My thoughts were interrupted by Sirius standing up and shouting loudly at Tom at the front of the room. A cold feeling went through my stomach and I could feel my face flush and for once in my life I was embarrassed to be related to Sirius.

"You believe that just because the muggles persecuted us in the past that that gives up permission to go after them?!" Even from my position in the huge room, I could see Tom's smirk and green eyes flickering dangerously. Though there was something different about him; he looked older, like he had aged ten years in the last five to ten minutes. Not that it didn't suit him, it was just odd. But his expression read that he had expected some sort of outburst, and I bet you anything that he had been expecting the outburst from one of the Gryffindors.

"Ah, Sirius Black," Tom said, his voice seemingly deeper, "I hadn't assumed that you would attend this meeting, let alone participate." Yeah, Tom had been expecting an outburst.

"I would have thought," Tom continued, "That, concerning your heritage, you would have been enthusiastic about this venture." This, I knew, was a stab in Sirius' chest. After this summer, I was sure that he wanted nothing at all to do with our family.

"Tom, the muggles aren't harming _anybody!_ They're not destroying our society, and they're not contaminating our school with muggle-borns! We can walk the streets of muggle London without an awkward glance from anybody! _We are not hiding!_"

"_How can you say that they are not contaminating our school?!_" Now I had stood up and was speaking, more so _yelling _at Sirius, to which he seemed quite surprised. If I wasn't too busy following what my small ego was saying, then I would have stopped to think about what the outcome of my following statements would be.

"You've seen the mudbloods and squibs running about! It's enough, Sirius! Why can't you see that if we don't do something, soon the entire wizarding community will be ruled by mudbloods!" I must have gone through a growth spurt since the last time I stood next to Sirius, because I could now see directly into his eyes. They were black pools of hate, confusion, and what seemed to be sorrow, and I'm sure that my eyes were the same. Sirius closed his eyes and bowed his head for a split second, then looked up again, ready for a fight. Not just a childhood fight as if one of us had turned the other's teddy bear into a giant spider, but a fight as real adults. Though I was two years younger than Sirius, who would be soon of legal age, I now knew that we had been separated, not by blood, but by choice. He had betrayed me by telling his friends everything, and now I was going to betray him by swearing myself to the very thing that he hated, the idea of pure-blooded supremacy.

"_Don't do this, Regulus,_" he said, "You don't even know the full extent of this argument!"

"You think I'm deaf, Sirius?! Growing up in our house I would have to be to not hear every side of this argument! Without muggles, wizards and witches would thrive on this earth!" I could feel every eye in the room around us watching as we stood there, glaring at each other with utter loathing. I knew Tom was watching this, standing up there surveying the two quarreling brothers that he most probably invited together on purpose, just so he could see what would happen.

At this point in time, Sirius turned to Tom and said in a voice laced with venom, "I don't know what you did to seduce my brother into this, Tom, but know that he will not be as useful to your cause as may seem." He turned to me now and looked so much like our father I got the chill up the back of my spine that I got whenever I was in my father's presence, "He is a coward." Sirius grabbed the front of my robes and whispered, "_I will talk to you later_." I pushed him away and gave him a look that said he should leave before I hexed him, and he did, looking slightly taken aback as he walked through the door, watched by every person in the room. Before, he could grab the front of my robes and intimidate me, but now it did nothing. I was ready to kill him, and I found my wand in my hand as if I was about to do it. No matter how much I looked like my mother, I found that I was my father's son, and Sirius would soon come to know that after the end of the meeting.

"Well done, Regulus."

I whipped my head around and saw Tom standing right by me. Everyone in the room including myself jumped; two seconds ago, Tom had been standing at the front of the room, and now he was beside me with his arm around me.

"This is the kind of loyalty to our cause I require," Tom said to the slightly frightened group of students that remained in the room, "The will to have to go up against your own brother in order to uphold your beliefs, if they truly are yours. On this note, if anybody in this room is opposed to the statements I have made, I suggest you leave... _Now_." Tom had, once again, appeared to have gotten older. Nobody seemed to be making a mad dash for the door, but one person couldn't bear the change in Tom's appearance.

"_What is going on here?!_" came Wormtail's loud, squeaky voice from one side of the room. Everyone looked over to see a terrified boy wide-eyed and shaking, "Why do you keep getting older?!"

Tom smirked at this and closed his eyes, looking more handsome than ever, "I was waiting for somebody to bring that up," he said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. And, with his arm still around my shoulder, he took out his wand and pointed it at himself, while muttering some incantation. Thus, he began to change. He grew taller, though not by much, and his face grew a few more lines, but was still pale and alabaster. Tom's dark hair sprouted a few grey streaks, and thus I was standing alongside a much older man, though still as sleek as ever. He must have been in his fifties, probably on the mark of fifty. This was a bit unsettling to behold, considering I was snogging this guy a few days ago under the false impression that he was only two years older than I was, not thirty-five years older.

I could feel this common reaction in the room as jaws dropped and eyes widened. From the looks of it, Tom had been busy in trying to recruit Slytherin guests. And by the looks of the people in the room whom I recognised, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Avery, Dolohov, the Lestranges (Rodolphus, of course, and his brother Rabastan), Macnair, and another handful of people I would expect to be 'persuaded' into something like this by an attractive stranger. Of course, I was one of these people, so I couldn't judge. The only person I hadn't expected to be there was Severus. How Tom could have gotten him to come, I'm still not sure to this day. Maybe Tom promised to kill Severus' parents, but I can't be sure. I haven't talked to Severus in nearly a year now, so I wouldn't be able to ask him, not with the dwindling time I have left.

"I am sorry that I have to reveal myself to you in this way now, but I can think of no other more appropriate time." Tom's voice had gotten the slightest bit lower, but was ripe with age, and he took his arm off of my shoulders, "I deceived you, my followers. I tricked you all into thinking that I was younger than I actually am, and for that, I apologise." This would be the first and last time I ever heard this man apologise for his actions.

"You can all understand why I couldn't reveal my proper age to you, being the intelligent students that you are," looking around the room once again, I was tempted to say that he was _so wrong_, "So, now that you are here and you know the truth, choose. Are you going to leave and desert me, your classmates,u and all of the things that I promised you? _Or_, are you going to stay, and be involved in one of the most important causes that wizards and witches alike will ever partake in, the purification of the blood of our world?"

There was a moment of silence. Everybody just stood there, absorbing Tom's words. He spoke with such fluency and ease that he made the extermination of the muggles, which to me would have been nothing out of the ordinary, sound more appealing and alluring than it had ever been when I had heard my mother and father speak about it.

After this hushed moment, the room erupted into to cheers and clapping for Tom, and he smiled, his deep emerald eyes dangerously aflame.

**----------**

I walked out of the Room of Requirement holding my forearm where the black tattoo of a serpent coming out of a skull had recently been placed. It was moving about in an eerie dance as I watched it, and the farther I went from the Room of Requirement, the slower it moved. I hadn't expected to see Tom in Hogwarts again, seeing as the professors had probably gotten wind of this meeting and would be watching it carefully. Headmaster Dippet would probably put some kind of charm on it, but, even if he did, it wouldn't make much of a difference. He was never a really effective headmaster; I always though that he should retire and allow Dumbledore to do the job, but of course I never said that.

Towards the end of the meeting, Tom had asked every student to roll up the sleeves on their left arm and stand in a line. In some weird twist of fate, I ended up first in line. I held my arm out to Tom, who held my wrist gently and pointed his wand at it. He then said in a somewhat hushed tone, "_Ophidia manu propria._"

A green and black light ejected out of the end of his wand and I felt a searing pain go into my arm. I flinched but ground my teeth and bore the pain, clasping my arm on to the skin on my arm. When the pain was gone, I looked down and saw the skull. It opened its mouth and the serpent came crawling out and danced wildly.

"You are the first Hogwarts student Regulus," Tom said, prompting me to look up at him, "to ever become a Death Eater." I just stared at him for a moment, taking in what he had just said. It wasn't Deaf Feeters that Severus' father was talking about, it was _Death Eaters_. And for once, I smiled. It had been so long since the last time I had that my face was a bit sore when I did it.

"Thank you, Tom." I said, really meaning it. He nodded, never taking his eyes off me. I turned and left the room, half smiling with as much pride as I could take as a sensation of ecstasy ran through me. I rushed towards the door, feeling the interested eyes of the rest of the students trying to see what my hand was covering up. I knew exactly where to go next, and by knowing that, I knew exactly where Sirius was. This was going to be one hell of a row.

By the time I made it down to the One-Eyed Witch Passageway, the serpent on my arm had stopped moving, and now was just an immobile tattoo. The lamps were all out, since we were out after-hours and students were supposed to be at least in their Common Rooms. I saw Sirius standing there, as I expected, but he didn't see me. So I moved to the wall beside the entry of the passageway and covered my arm with my sleeve. I took my robe off and draped it over my shoulder. I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed deeply, being careful as to not make any noise while doing so. I couldn't think of a more difficult thing that I would have to do tonight. Though my hatred for Sirius was growing larger and larger by the day, he was still my brother, and I still... well, had _feelings_ for him. It was so incredibly fucked up beyond all recognition that I wanted to bash my head against the wall, but I knew even that wouldn't get all of my thoughts out of my head. With a quick shot of foresight, I performed a sound barrier charm on the passageway. I remembered before when Sirius and I had gotten into a fight and actually blew out Kreacher's eardrums with our screaming, and I did not want the same kind of attention in school.

I walked into the passageway, letting Sirius hear my footsteps in the dark. It was nearly all dark, but the light of the crescent moon made our figures just barely visible, and there was no possible way Sirius and I could mistake each other from anybody else. That was one thing I was completely sure of. My left hand was in my pocket, and my tie was a bit undone. He turned and saw me, his shadowed face unreadable. For a moment we just stood there, our identical eyes locked in some kind of non-existing emotion. We must have stood there for nearly ten minutes, neither one of us speaking. For all the times one of us said that we didn't want to talk, now was the time that I knew we _both_ wanted to, and neither of us would speak the first word. I walked toward him with easy confident steps and a sense of false self-confidence, for on the inside I was ready to break down and scream, but I would never let Sirius see me do that.

I strode right up to Sirius, getting as close to his face as I could get so I could look directly into his eyes. When I did that, he kissed me. Full and hard on the lips. For a moment, I just stood there in shock, taking it in and letting rage and hatred fill my stomach, lungs and chest. What the hell did he think he was doing?! Wasn't _he_ then one who said that it would have never worked?! Then, I did what I had been wanting to do for the past three months. I dropped the robe that was draped over my shoulder, wound up my arm, and socked Sirius right in the jaw and off of my face. It must have hurt, because I heard something crack and I could see in the dim light that had Sirius immediately started to bleed from the mouth.

"_YOU THINK I WOULD GIVE YOU ANOTHER THING TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT, SIRIUS?!_" I screamed with every inch of my lungs, hoping to God the sound barrier was working, "_YOU THINK THAT AFTER YOU LEFT ME HIGH AND DRY THAT I WOULD COME CRAWLING BACK, EVEN AFTER YOU SPILLED TO REMUS AND JAMES AND PROBABLY THAT GODDAMNED SHIT-FOR-BRAINS WORMTAIL?! YOU THINK I WOULD FURTHER SUBJECT MYSELF TO THE TORTURE THAT I'VE HAD TO ENDURE EVERYDAY BECAUSE OF WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS, WHICH HAUNTS ME EVERY TIME I LOOK AT YOU?!_" I stopped at that, getting much too close to the subject of Lucius, and I just stood there, idly, staring at Sirius in a fiery rage that I could see made red sparks fly out of the edge of my wand, which was luckily placed in my robe. I was shaking with anger as Sirius stood up, wiping the blood from his chin. I had knocked him a fair distance away, so he had to walk a bit to get closer to me. He stared at me, his eyes just as emotionless as they were before I punched him. I would have been intrigued, if I wasn't so angry. The light of the moon made him nearly as attractive as he was when he was silhouetted against the light of a fire, but there was no way in hell I was going to think of that right now.

"Regulus, I only told James and Remus that we had been having fights. They asked me after the incident with Lucius in Knockturn Alley, so that's what I told them."

I lost my breath for a moment, taking in what he had just said. So he _hadn't _told... oh, fuck.

I was knocked backwards off my feet by Sirius' fist, and I heard the same thing crack in my jaw that I had heard crack in his. _Damn_, did that hurt! I collided with the floor and felt the warm rush of blood in my mouth coupled with splitting pain. I lay there for a second, wanting to cry, but I stood and faced my brother, who appeared right next to me the very same way that Tom had.

"Now, we are even, my younger brother." He said in a sadistically calm voice as I repositioned my jaw so I could attempt to speak. This was the first punch I had suffered through the whole of my life, but I still somehow knew how to fix it.

"So, tell me, what has been going on with Malfoy?" Sirius growled, all of the calmness gone from his voice, the sadistic air still remaining.

"Nothing," I growled right back, angry as all hell, "Nothing has been going on."

"Oh, really?" Sirius mocked, "Considering by your abnormal outburst right there _and_ the odd situation I found the two of you in recently, I wouldn't be so sure." I wasn't even talking to my brother anymore, I was talking to an _enemy_ that I would have to defeat, and skillfully.

"Tell me, _darling_," Sirius mocked again, speaking in a high voice and imitating our mother, "What has Reggie been up to? Some nasty business with the Malfoy boy?!"

All the while I had been getting angrier and angrier while Sirius continued to taunt me, probably thinking that nothing was really going on between Lucius and I, and just saying these things to make me mad. I just stared at the floor, taking it, taking all of the abuse that was laid down on me, feeling every weight I ever had to carry on my shoulders, feeling every expectation I had from my mother and father and nearly every bloody member on our family tree, and then feeling all the psychological and physical pain that I had endured from Lucius stab me in the chest like a silver dagger whose serpent-carved handle gleamed with all of its black and emerald jeweled scales glimmered like the very fires of hell.

At this moment, I let go. I sunk to the floor and collapsed, the tears flowing like rivers out of my eyes, mixing the blood with the water as it went silently down my face. I didn't make any noise- I just sat there, staring into space and not caring about life anymore. Sirius' ridiculing soon stopped as he noticed what I was doing. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I wanted to reach for my wand and thereby end my life, but I couldn't. I had never before been taken over completely by this sort of emotion that rendered me so helpless that I couldn't move for fear that I would fall apart if I tried to stand.

Sirius dropped to one knee and took me by the shoulders, shaking me lightly. He hadn't seen me cry since I was eight years old. It had really been seven years since I had cried, and it was all coming out now. No words, just water. Sirius was saying something, but I couldn't hear him. My brain felt like it was going to explode, and I leaned forward on to Sirius, who caught me and said something else. I didn't blink, I had no need to moisturise my eyes. There was no feeling or emotion left in me- I was empty. My tears were starting to pool on the floor, and I was totally aware of how pathetic I probably looked right now, but I didn't have enough will to care. I didn't have enough will to do anything. I couldn't feel, I couldn't speak, I couldn't think. I just sat there, slumped against my brother. But then, something happened, I don't quite know what, and I grabbed on to his sleeve and just started sobbing. Every pent up emotion I had came flooding out. My throat was sore from all the yelling I had just did, and I knew I was making noise, I just couldn't hear it. Every noise was gone. I could have been deaf, but right then it didn't matter. I was probably screaming something about hating Lucius, our family, and, most of all, myself. It was a damn good thing I had put the charm on the room, because I didn't want anybody to hear this, ever.

Sirius held me tight and close, and, in a moment of pure fraternal love, we just sat there. As gay and ridiculous and stupid as it sounds, he and I just sat there. He let me cry and sob until I calmed down and lost my breath. I could have swore that I died that night inside, but I knew that that wasn't going to happen for a long time. I did not notice, though, as I was quaking with silent sobs, that the young man who held me was shaking with fury. His deep blue eyes were now black pools as he stared up at the moon.

I then stopped moving. The tears stopped flowing, and I stopped sobbing. I was empty, and I had passed out on Sirius' shoulder.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	7. Muggle Substances

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**Chapter Six**

_Muggle Substances_

I felt like I had hit rock bottom.

When Sirius was holding me there, I just felt so empty and pathetic that I wanted to kill myself for being as such. I finally stopped wailing like an idiot and stayed still for a moment, taking in the situation: I was being held close by Sirius. This was the very thing I had wanted, but certainly under different circumstances. I gently pushed off of Sirius, having gotten years' worth of feelings off of my chest, and quickly prepared myself for more years of being emotionally comatose. I looked at Sirius, who looked back at me, not with sorrow, not with love, but with concern. Concern for what, I'm not sure. Now, I will never know what was going through Sirius' head that night, but, if I had asked, though it would have broken the dramatic silence between the two of us, I probably would _not _be in the position I'm in right now. Sirius' stark blue eyes surveyed my face while he absent-mindedly held my cheek. He seemed to do this for the longest time, and then his hand moved to the back of my head and he pulled me against him. This wasn't a romantic gesture (I wasn't lovesick enough to think that it was), but the shaky physical contact still made my heart beat rapidly and my head spin for one second. I was breathing normally now, and completely able to say something without it coming out as some unintelligible wail, but I didn't. I couldn't. There was no need to. Sirius and I were feeding off of each other, just like when we were little; if he was excited about something, I became excited about something else, and vice versa. That's how it always was with us. I suppose that would have never changed.

Good God, am I depressing myself. This was one of the most emotional events in my life, a real turning point, and I look back on it in disgust with myself. There's nothing worse than depressing yourself when you're sitting in a dungeon waiting for death to come and call you, so... whatever you do, don't do something that might land you in some form of prolonged incarceration. You'll go mad, take it from me.

I knew I should have been feeling flushed, but I wasn't. I gently pushed myself off of Sirius once again and stared at him. An hour ago, there was nothing more I would have wanted than him. And now, I felt nothing. Nothing for him, nothing for myself, and nothing for what prospects may lie ahead. Nevertheless, I smiled at Sirius. A small, sincere smile. Then, I got up, taking him up by the hand with me. He wasn't smiling, but I could feel that it made him happy to see me doing it. It was a rare thing to see. We stood there, looking at each other, feeding off every emotion. I felt oddly enlightened, looking at him. But, I know now that that enlightenment was meant to last only one night. I turned and picked up my robe, flicking my wand to take the sound charm off. Then, I walked out of the passageway, leaving Sirius (and James and Remus who I saw were ducking behind the wall) in my wake.

As I walked, I concluded that I was probably just tired with all of those thoughts going through my head, but there was the possibility that I was slipping farther and farther into my impending personality disorder, but we won't get into that. I would probably feel fine in the morning and be back to my usual self. Whether or not that was a good thing, I wasn't sure. I passed through the Slytherin Common Room entrance, and walked into the Common Room where a whole gang of Slytherins were waiting for me. Malfoy was in the centre of the group, his lugs, Crabbe and Goyle (forever on his sides, but never in his bed), Avery on Crabbe's left, Amycus (I was surprised the prat actually had the courage to come and stand with Lucius last year after Lucius had practically hexed his nose off) and Walden Macnair.

Ooh, Macnair... there was a pompous bastard if I ever knew one; he was incredibly proud of the fact that he '_already _had an _internship_ at the _Ministry of Magic_' (insert the kind of laugh a twat like him laughs after he brags). Yeah, sure, he had an internship at the Ministry of Magic, but an internship as an amateur executioner for the Committee of the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.

Absolutely _nothing _to be proud about there.

"Well gentlemen," Lucius said, leaning forward on a chair in front of him and putting a sickeningly handsome look on his face (by this, I mean an evil look), and addressing his gang, "I believe that we sure are in for a show tonight." His friends snickered and smirked, looking at me with narrow eyes. Now, a month, a week, or even yesterday, this would have scared me out of my mind, but, of course, I wouldn't have let it show. But, today for some reason was different. I felt a new sense of confidence that had never been there before, I had no intention of keeping it in.

"So, what? You're all going to gang-bang me, is that it?" The sniggering stopped at this. I was frank with words in my mind, why could I be frank with words with my mouth? Oh, right, that's because it was always occupied.

"I'll tell you right now, Lucius," I said, while pointing to Crabbe, Goyle, and Amycus, "Those three are going to absolutely crush me and then you won't have anything left to please you in the near future." They all looked stunned. None of them had ever heard me say anything like that ever, even Lucius. I smirked a bit at seeing the expressions on their faces, which were only exaggerated as I did so. They had never seen me smile, much less _smirk_.

Lucius seemed the most surprised; his own smirk had vanished from his pale face, and he was now staring at me with the most profoundly confounded expression on his face. I could have burst out laughing- I've always wanted to put that look on Lucius' face (I had even considered telling him I was pregnant, just to see how he would react), but I never knew how to do it properly. I couldn't have asked for a better situation than this. Unfortunately, Lucius nearly instantly returned to his regular, cocky look, and waltzed towards me, "Regulus, Regulus. You know I would _never_ do that to you," I could have broken his nose for lying like that; he _was_ going to do that, but since I found out it was over, and he brought me up to the platform part of the floor where they were all standing "And my friends and I only want to know: how did it come to be that you became the pet of Tom Riddle?"

I looked at Lucius, at first, with confusion, "What do you mean _pet_?"

"I mean, Regulus, how did it come to be that you are now Tom's favourite? It is obvious that he was fawning over you during the meeting- and now you're going to try and say that he wasn't?" Lucius said this last part as I was about to retort; he _wasn't _fawning over me at all... Lucius was just jealous that I had gotten the mark first, and I said so, "You're just jealous that I got the mark before you." I said it matter-of-factly with a bemused look on my face, knowing that Lucius would be enraged.

"You might as well get used to other people chasing after me, Lucius, because it has been happening more and more frequently that the sudden human contact is, honestly, a bit frightening." The words were just coming out of nowhere now, and my tongue was just playing them along, "The first rule to having your own, personal, slave boy, Lucius, is to NOT GET _POSSESSIVE_."

There was a huge adrenaline rush going on inside me at seeing every single one of those prats' faces get twisted up with surprise, especially with this last line I spouted out, "I'm going up to bed, you all are getting increasingly boring." With one last scathing look at Lucius, I ascended the staircase with a short-lived smirk and a well-awaited air of the Black blood coursing through my veins.

----------

That night, though I slept much better than I had in ages, I was plagued by a series of the most realistic nightmares I had ever experienced. The first, I remember, was of a young woman, a young man, and an old man all sitting in a shabby and dirty cabin in the middle of nowhere, their appearances reflecting their household. The younger man said something to the woman (I couldn't hear that well for some reason), and the woman screeched at him, stopping whatever she had been doing near the fireplace and proceeding to beat who I presumed was her brother. This made the older man stand up and shout, red in the face. He jumped began to strangle his daughter, but then, many wizards barged into the house and hexed the father and the brother, who was kicking his sister as she had curled up into a ball on the dirt floor. This was when I awoke.

I fell back to sleep in nearly no time at all and saw flashes of the woman and a handsome with black hair and green eyes young man on a black horse. Pieces of what seemed to be a memory flashing through my mind. It first showed the woman making some kind of potion and sneaking it into the man's drink. Then there was a wedding, the woman with the man, and then the man screaming at the woman and leaving her obviously pregnant. The next flash was of a boy in an orphanage. The boy had dark black hair and green eyes, and I presumed that it was the son of the young man who left the woman and their child. The boy was sitting alone by himself until some other children came over and began to taunt him. The boy got a dangerous expression on his face, and there was a bright flash of red light, and the boys ran away screaming- their eyes were all bleeding as if they were about to fall out. I didn't understand this, though. How could a young boy do magic without even a wand? I didn't have enough time to think about that, for the next flash was here, at Hogwarts. The boy was being sorted into Slytherin, the boy was being turned into a Prefect, and then, Head Boy. It was like I was viewing somebody's life in fast motion. And then I realised who the boy was- how could I have been so stupid?! It was Tom, _Tom_ who had gone through all this, and now I knew the man that I was serving.

I woke up the next morning, early.

I dressed in the dark, being as quiet as I could. I had gone to bed alone, but woke up with all of my roommates in their respective places. Severus was asleep (for once), and so were the other lugs in my room, whom I hadn't seen in the meeting. I had to wonder whether or not last night actually happened; it just seemed so surreal. I remembered the meeting, and I remembered crying on Sirius. That was the oddest part- I hadn't cried in years, and I had to question whether or not every event of the night in fact took place.

I pulled on my black trousers and my white shirt. While I buttoned that up, the black mark on my arm caught my eye in the dim blue light of the morning. I pulled my sleeve up and surveyed it. My eyes could have been playing a trick on me again, but the snake was _definitely _moving in the same, eerie way it was the night before. I quickly covered it up and thought of what might happen if somebody found out about this. I mean, in the eyes of the society we were in today, the cause Tom (and now _I_) was pushing for was unacceptable. A part of me agreed with everything that Tom said, but another part of me was undecided on whether or not muggles and muggle-borns were acceptable at all. Good Lord, this was getting troublesome. I was always terrible about being in groups, but I had a feeling from the look of the tattoo that backing out was not an option. Maybe this would be a break from my obsessive-compulsive lifestyle.

The thought of that terrified me beyond the edge of my sanity.

My watch said that it was four thirty in the morning, my mind said that it was noon, but my body said that it was time to back to sleep. You know that sick feeling you get in your stomach when you know you're overly tired, but your mind won't shut down? That was how I was feeling- but it was the first time I had ever experienced it. Most of the time my insomnia came painlessly, this was the first time the lack of sleep had an effect on my person.

I exited the huge, ancient doors, a few owls flying out with me. I thought for a moment about sending a letter to my parents- I knew they would be proud of this venture against muggles. But then, I decided against it. It didn't seem like a good thing to send messages through the mail about this; it seemed to be extremely volatile, though I did not yet know why. I walked across the grey-blue grass which was not yet graced with the golden morning sun. The dark waters of the lake were foreboding and ominous.

_Like black coffee_, I thought. I must have been truly exhausted; I had never used coffee as a metaphor for anything ever in my life, but I could really could use hot mug of that right about now. On second thought, forget the coffee- firewhiskey is what I really need right now, even though I really hated that awful stuff.

I sat down by the lake alone, somehow feeling the snake moving on my forearm in its tingling, slightly _burning_ curve. I really couldn't think at this point, even though I should have had a lot on my mind. My mind was dazed and fatigued. On top of all the things that had been going on, I had to stay up late to finish nearly five pieces of twelve-inch parchment a night. My brain had shut down.

I heard a small rustle next to me, and suddenly Tom was next to me on the grass. By now, I was used to people sneaking up on me, so, for the first time, I wasn't taken aback. This was a Tom I didn't quite recognise. He looked young, as he did the first time I saw him (at this exact location, in fact), but a few years creased the lines in his face. He was still devilishly handsome as he gazed at me through those brilliant green eyes that were waiting for me to speak.

All that came out was a casual, "Good morning, Tom."

"Good morning, Regulus." He answered politely, his face reflecting none of the madman I had seen the night before, "I heard you had a bit of trouble from your dormitory-mates last night."

This remark was slightly surprising; how did Tom _already _know about that? Unless Lucius or another one of his pack of idiots went and told Tom directly after or sent an owl, there was no way Tom could have known... But, of course, both of these claims were completely plausible, so I just continued my conversation with Tom and forgot about it.

"Yes, I did. But it was taken care of." I answered, making sure that my voice didn't falter once.

"Quite efficiently, I recall. Lucius was very flustered when he wrote me, or so his handwriting revealed." This was a little frightening- Tom could read people's handwriting. I would have to be very careful if I ever wrote him something. I was still a bit uncomfortable about what Lucius had said, about me being 'Tom's pet', and about the dreams about Tom I had had. The night before had been quite disturbing as a whole, actually. I knew I wasn't Tom's pet, or anything, so that I really didn't have to worry about that. But, the dream was something I had to ask Tom about _now_ since I would probably never have another chance.

"Tom, was it you who put the dreams in my head last night?" This was a ridiculous way of asking him, but, the only excuse I still have the right to use is that half of my brain was shut down and had no talent for poise in words. Nonetheless, Tom answered.

"Yes, it was me." he said with a small sigh, "You weren't the only person who got the dreams, though. Every person who attended the meeting last night had them- excluding your brother, of course." He cast a careful glance towards me at the mention of Sirius, "He knew too much already." Tom finished.

My mind searched for something to change the topic from Sirius, and I finally came up with a topic, "So, only two hours in and Lucius has already come crying to you? I think that's a record." Tom chuckled and nodded, a small smile upon his face. We sat there for a moment, not really speaking. I wanted to ask him if he saw me as his pet, but before I could get the words out, he answered.

"I don't put any special favour out to you, Regulus, without meaning to." Tom said, somehow being able to look directly into my eyes, "It's just, if you like someone more in a crowd of people, then that particular person just seems to stand out."

"Don't explain this to me, explain it to Lucius and the rest of those twats."

At this point, Tom directed my face towards his and kissed me, if only for the briefest moment, and then pulled away again.

"I _did_, and he seemed quite insulted." I nodded, Tom's hand still holding my face with his long fingers. The kiss, for some reason, had no impact on me emotionally. I suppose I was over-kissed at that point in time. Tom let go and we both stood up. He pointed his face skyward and said, while still looking up, "It is going to rain today. You'd better get inside."

I stared at him for a long moment until he lowered his chin and looked back at me, "Are you coming inside," I began, "Or going off again to some unknown place?"

Tom walked the short distance between us until our noses were nearly touching, "All you need to know, Regulus," he said, "Is that I'll always be close by. Now, you had better get inside quickly, or you're going to become soaking wet. _Ascendio!_"

With a flack of Tom's wand, I was sent hurling toward the entrance of the school from which I had exited, looking back at Tom only once. Once I had landed on my feet inside, there was a large clap of thunder. I turned to see it just start to pour rain, the place where Tom and I had stood chillingly vacant.

I went through my classes, and Severus wasn't in _one _of them.

I saw James and Remus talking in a group in one of the passageways on my way back to the Slytherin Common Room. James and Remus looked at me, their eyes full of worry and concern. They didn't need to say a word; I knew exactly what had happened. During the last year, Sirius had developed a rather nasty habit of using daggers against himself on his wrists, watching them bleed, healing them with magic, then starting over again. James and Remus knew only because I had told them after Mum told me. She had walked in on him doing it, and had a right bloody fit. I watched Kreacher clean the blood off of the daggers that night, and I wondered what had become of our family.

I thought that Sirius had stopped, but, evidently, he hadn't. There was a bit of blood on the sleeve of Remus' shirt, and James' glasses had been cracked. Their faces were telling me to walk away and leave him alone, but I couldn't do that no matter _how_ much I wanted to avoid the three of them that day. I turned on my heal and began to walk to the Gryffindor Common Room, but James pulled me back.

"Regulus, we _know_ now what is _really _going on, and we don't want you to go through with it. Sirius doesn't either." I glanced at James over my shoulder, and continued to walk.

"Regulus, don't _do _this!" Remus had begun to follow me, "Sirius told us about what happened in that weird gathering, and what you have on your arm!" He now grabbed my left arm, jerking me backward and pushing up my sleeve to reveal the morbid tattoo. I pulled my arm back instinctively and shouted, "_Expelliarmus!_"

Remus was blasted back by the eruption from my wand and I began to run towards the Gryffindor entrance. I could hear James running behind me for a while, but I could surprisingly run quickly, and the sound of James' footsteps and shouting soon came to an end. As I ran, I searched my mind for the password to the Gryffindor Common Room. The Fat Lady in the painting at the entrance didn't care if you were a Slytherin, a Hufflepuff, or a Ravenclaw, she would always let you in as long as you had the password. Horrible security, but then again it _was_ Gryffindor. I ran past some first years that were sitting in the Common Room and gasped at the colours of my tie as I ran up the spiral staircase to Sirius, James, Remus and Peter's room. The large, carved oak door was shut and when I tried to open it, I found it was locked.

"Sirius! Open the door!" I could have opened the door myself, but I was too overwhelmed with trying to regain my breath and worry about Sirius to think about that. There was no answer, and I yelled, "_SIRIUS! OPEN THE DOOR OR I WILL FUCKING BLAST IT OPEN!_"

The door opened and a seriously frightened Wormtail stood behind it, "Alright, Regulus!" He was shaking and his pale eyes were wide open, "He's n-not really able to come to see you right now. H-he's... _indisposed_."

It was obvious that Wormtail was scared out of his mind at the sight of me, but I really couldn't understand why, but I wasn't seeing myself in the mirror the moment I was speaking to him. I would have probably been quite shaken myself. I drew myself up to full height (though it was hardly necessary since I was now taller than Wormtail even when I was slouching), as Sirius often did to become imposing, and it was quite effective. I gave Wormtail the most silently psychotic look that was appropriate for this situation, and he seemed to shrink into the floor.

"Wormtail," he shuddered at the severity in my voice as I said the name that only James, Sirius, and Remus used, "You are going to let me in- _right now_, or I will blast you to _bits_. Now get _out_ of my way." I tried to think of myself as intimidating as I used to think Lucius was, and it worked. Wormtail moved out of my way quickly and shuffled into a corner and I walked into the dormitory. It looked like the Slytherin dormitories, only a slight colour change, and it smelled just like Sirius, but there was no time to acknowledge the decor of the room right now. I ran into the bathroom where Sirius was sitting on the floor, his skin paler than a corpse's. There wasn't any blood on the floor as I expected, but rather a needle, a spoon with a black mark on it, and a bunch of matches strewn across the tiles. I took Sirius by the shoulders and screamed at him, not really knowing what I was saying. He looked dead, and when I surveyed his arm I saw there was some kind of rubbery tube tied tightly around his upper arm, below it, a puncture that could have only been made by the needle. I turned and saw Wormtail standing in the doorway, and I stood with my wand out and pointed at him.

"_What did you do to him?_" I barked at Wormtail who let out a small scream and fell backwards as I advanced. "_WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU RAT?!_"

"He- he did it to himself! He said that he had gotten the stuff in m-muggle London from some bloke! He said it made everything s-seem b-better!" He spat the words out as the end of my wand began to glow. I didn't know what had happened, but all I was concerned about was how to help Sirius.

"Get Madam Pomfrey!" I screamed at him, "_Run! Now!_" I screamed even louder when Wormtail hesitated, and then scrambled out of the room and crashed down the stairs and out of the Common Room. I just sat there, not touching Sirius, curled up in a ball and hoping that he wasn't dead because he certainly looked it. James and Remus might have come into the room while I was on the bathroom floor staring at my brother, but I was too consumed in my hate to care.

_He had gotten the stuff in muggle London from some bloke..._

That was it. I didn't know what the 'stuff' was, but it was from muggles, and it was the muggles' fault that Sirius was there like he was then. Now I grasped what Tom had been saying. The muggles would have to be wiped out for any and all of the reasons why they polluted the earth.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	8. Truth In Dreams

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**Chapter Seven**

_Truth in Dreams_

Sirius was put in the hospital wing, and didn't come out for two weeks.

Madame Pomfrey had no idea what it was that Sirius had injected himself with, therefore she didn't know what to do to cure him. Remus and Wormtail had no idea what it was (though Wormtail had injected a much smaller amount into his own arm). If James knew what it was, he wasn't breathing a word. The three of them and I went to see Sirius nearly every night, but sometimes I couldn't go- I'll explain that later.

Through practically the whole duration of the time Sirius was in the wing, it was like he was in a coma. His skin stayed the same pale colour, and his face was now growing thinner every day, as he was surviving off of a tube Pomfrey had put in his arm, and I was reminded for the first time in months of the dream I had. He was wearing the same the same look of despair, and the dream was beginning to make more and more sense. The snake coming out of my mouth was obviously alluding to the snake on my arm... but how could my subconscious have insight into the future? It was too complicated to think about when I had to worry about Sirius right then, but I would figure it out later... only I never did when I was in Hogwarts. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I always knew that I would have a _long _while at some point in my life to think and think and think until my brain couldn't stand it anymore. Well, I do now. And believe me, I've been doing a lot of thinking, not that it's really going to do me much good.

The first few days while he was in the hospital wing, Sirius was just sleeping, and I overheard Remus telling James that he was finally catching up after about eight nights of no sleep. I suppose insomnia was a trait in our family, and I started discreetly studying my cousins, Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Andromeda for signs of fatigue. I soon gave up, concluding that Narcissa and Bellatrix probably wore makeup to cover any alleged dark circles, or covered them with magic like I did with my various bruises. There was another reason that I stopped watching these two sisters in particular, and that was because they were both threatening to 'tell Lucius', if I kept watching them, and they threatened to tell him that I was sick enough to check out my own cousins.

Blechh... the girls may have been beautiful to passers-by, but their personalities (I've mentioned Bellatrix's before) to me made them uglier than Blast-Ended Skrewts that were about to pop. Andromeda, on the other hand, was my favourite cousin, and said she didn't mind when I apologised for watching her when she caught me. Being very natural in personality as well as appearance, she was more lovely than her wretched sisters could ever charm themselves to be. Sometimes, when she caught me doing it, she would strike a pose and wink. This was in the middle of lunch or a class, usually, and the students' puzzled looks were both embarrassing and really, really funny. And, yes, I saw that she _did_ have faint dark circles under her eyes.

After about four days in the hospital wing, Sirius began to act _very _strangely. He would open his eyes for only a moment, and his face would then begin to twitch, followed by jerking arm and leg movements that gave him the image of a person having a heart attack. He didn't speak the first few times, just a lot of rapid breathing and huffing. But then he would start to yell and shout, and would always ask for James. When James came, Sirius would ask for more of the stuff (he called it smack) that he had injected into his arm. When James would tell him that he wouldn't get more of it, Sirius would start writhing in pitiful convulsions of screams and curses that still haunt my memory today.

As I've said before, Madame Pomfrey had no idea what to do. She had tried every medicine and healing charm she knew, but the best she could do was put a sound barrier and a curtain around Sirius' bed, and wait for him to heal himself. It got more and more difficult to watch though, and Remus and James felt the same way. I knew this because during this time, we got to know each other really well. I felt like a bit of a Sirius substitute, but talking to people who didn't have all depressing stories or didn't want to harm you in any way was actually quite nice. Conveniently for him, Wormtail started taking extra study courses for his N.E.W.T.'s, though it really wouldn't do him much good, considering he had the intelligence of a rat. It was a good thing he was absent from every visit though, because I would have rung his fat neck for trying to separate me from Sirius when he was in that kind of condition. Even thinking about it now makes me angry.

But another thing drew itself to my attention; why did Sirius always ask James for the smack? I knew right away that James had supplied it to him, and I could tell by the look on his face that he felt horrible for it, but there were a few things I needed to clear up with James the first day Sirius called out his name. I took James out into the hallway in front of the hospital wing, leaving behind a concerned Remus. As soon as we were out of sight, I grabbed James by the collar and slammed him against the wall with newfound strength.

"_Alright, James,_" I hissed, somehow mimicking Lucius to get the point that I was insanely angry across, though I think by my eyes James would have known it by now, "_I want to know everything that you know about this _smack_, and what Madame Pomfrey can do to get my brother, your friend, out of the hell he is obviously in!_"

The words felt like fire as they escaped my throat, and I could feel the snake on my arm moving about again. Luckily, it was covered up. Now, I expected James to through me off and sock me in the face for even threatening him (I had seen it happen before), but he didn't. James Potter, the all-confident and all-powerful founder of the marauders (this is what the four called themselves), seemed to shrink under my words. The look in his eyes was a look of the utmost terror, which I thought was a bit exaggerated even for James, but I played it to my advantage and tightened my grip, my hands feeling as though they were about to start bleeding against the fabric of his shirt.

"_Tell me, James!_" I exclaimed in a low hiss. I felt something change in my eyes, and James' own became wider and more terrified and he choked out, "I got it from some bloke in Kings Road- the Chelsea part of muggle London! He said it was fine, that there was nothing wrong with it! But he did mention something about overdosing on it, but he passed out before he could say-"

"_You were stupid enough to take something you inject yourself with without finding out what it could do first?! James, what the hell is wrong with you?!_" I had screamed this rather loudly, and I worried instantly that somebody would hear, and sure enough, Remus came running out with an exasperated look on his face that soon turned to surprise and fright when he saw me nearly pushing James through the stone wall. But, instead of inquiring about that, he stared at me and asked, "Regulus, what's wrong with your eyes?!"

I let James go and he slumped against the wall. I turned to a window where the dark clouds of the day made it so I could see my own reflection. Everything else looked normal, but my eyes were that of a snake's, pupils slits and irises red. I cast a fleeting glance at Remus and James, and I sped off, not knowing why my eyes were like that or how I was going to fix them. I kept my eyes half-shut while running through the corridors and down to the Dungeons, making it very difficult to see where I was going, but not so difficult to see the odd looks that people were giving me as I ran.

When I got to the Slythering Common Room, it was full of bored students doing their homework and studying, so I briskly walked toward my room, making sure as to not attract any more attention as I notice Lucius was in a lounge chair near the fireplace with his friends. When I got to my room Mason, Gordon and Severus were all thankfully absent, but there was someone else sitting on my bed. Someone, I hope at this point, does not need any introduction.

"Hello Regulus." Tom said in his usual casual voice, "How are your eyes feeling?" He hadn't even turned around and he knew what was wrong, which just made me angrier and more alarmed, "Why does all this weird stuff keep happening and not to everybody else that went to that meeting? Why is it only me that gets these freaky snake eyes?!"

There was a pause, and Tom didn't speak, adding to his spooky phantom effect. But I wanted answers _right then_, "TELL ME, TOM!"

"_Because_," Tom half-hissed, turning his head around, "You are the _only _person in this school that has the heart to be a _true Death Eater_." He turned his head around completely now, and I saw that his eyes were identical to mine.His eyes were my eyes; my eyes were his eyes. We both had a pair of blood-red snakes' eyes that gave us an amphibian-like quality that you only feel in your most bizarre nightmares. This is how this whole thing was starting to feel like; a nightmare.

"What did you say?" I asked, finding that it stung to blink with my regular eyelids.

"You are the only person in this school that has the heart to be a true Death Eater," Tom repeated, his face as calm as it always was, "In other words, you are the figure of the _perfect_ Death Eater."

By now, I was just confused, "What do you _mean_, the 'perfect Death Eater'?! How could I be perfect for _anything_?!" I blurted out in kind of a verbal vomit, not knowing quite what to say. Tom raised his eyebrows at this at this uncharacteristic outburst. Tom knew that I wasn't one to speak what my mind usually said and I had just done so, "You know _exactly_ what I mean, Regulus. You have been prepared for this profession by your parents for the whole of you life, whether they knew what they were doing or not. By subjecting you to prolonged isolation, they taught you how to survive alone, forbade you of barely any contact with other people for the first half of your life, save your brother."

At this point, Tom stood and brought me over to the mirror in the room that Blake Gordon used to fix his hair. I had never looked in this mirror before, as Gordon was quite protective of it, but before I saw what Tom was trying to show me I noticed that my hair looked perfectly combed back with a faint silhouette of my actually tumbled hair behind it. Soon enough, silvery words appeared near the tufts of unkempt hair. They said, _Comb here, then gel_ in wispy letters in about four places around my head. I would have found this quite comical if I hadn't noticed that my eyes were back to normal and were as black as they always had been when Tom started to speak again.

"Look into your own eyes, Regulus," I looked, thankful that they were not snake's eyes anymore, "Those are the eyes of a person who has felt so much pain that has been unseen and unheard for such a long time. Though the pain is not physical- oh, no, your parents have never laid a _finger_ on you- it has been growing in your mind ever since you were old enough to comprehend the detachment from the outside world. You know what I am talking about," Tom's voice was becoming quieter and more hushed as he spoke, and he was coming slowly closer to my ear with every word, "The dark, dim rooms of your home have forever been a prison, and your parents, as infrequent as their contact is, seem as though they are the dementors that keep you. Though it is a prison you can move around freely in, you are still not allowed to leave, and it is the same when you come here. With many people around you, it just seems worse. The movement around you goes slowly, except when you are being dragged into Lucius' bedroom, but even that goes slower than it is supposed to.

"And Sirius is the deafening torture, isn't he?" This stung horribly as Tom hissed into my ear, his still-snakelike eyes connecting with mine, "He has been overshadowing you ever since you were young, not the way your parents want, but the way _you _want. He has friends, courage, a _life_ outside the prison your parents made. But what bothers you the _most_, Regulus, is that you have _no way out_. But what if I could given you that way out? What if I have _already_ given it to you?"

I slowly turned my head so that I could remove his lips from my ears and look at him, and I felt my ears go back in amazement. Tom had just dictated (in a moderately watered-down version) every feeling I had had towards my current life as I had contemplated it during the last few months. How could he _know _all this? It was impossible!

"This is _impossible_..." I said distantly, still focusing on Tom's face, "How could you know-" Tom covered my mouth, and his eyes turned back to normal, "I know because I have felt the same feeling of detachment and isolation," I thought back to the vision I had had of the orphanage, "And because you, and you alone, know what it is like to be _truly_ alone in the world."

"What about Gordon?" I asked, remembering how Lucius had regarded his left forearm with such apprehension, "He was a Death Eater before all of us!"

"That was when I was in Scotland, Regulus, and I found Gordon to be considerably exceptional in his skills. Gordon comes from a pureblood family, but is quite likable despite his chilly disposition, as are most of the Slytherins in this school that presented themselves at the meeting. Truthfully, I don't believe that _any _one of them, including Gordon," he added, seeing some envy on my face that I had somehow let through, "Are fully ready for what I will ask of them at the meeting tonight."

At this moment, I would like to backtrack a bit to the cause of my absence from Sirius' side during most of the time he was in the Hospital Wing; ever since I had stood up to him, Lucius had made it his business to make my life a perfect hell, even more so than he had already helped to make it before. Every time he advanced on me to do you-know-what, I resisted and blasted hexes at him. I was usually lucky, but when I wasn't, oh, was I in for it. He then cast the _immobulous _charm, making sure I couldn't move, and then would take me by the hair and slam me against anything that was behind me.

"_It would be unwise to do anything like that again, Regulus_," he said finally after about the eighth time I had nearly hexed him, "_I'm about to lose my temper._"

As ridiculous as it sounds, I let off after that. Those six words, _I'm about to lose my temper_, as simple as they may seem, coming from Lucius were like ticking dungbombs, only they were filled with something much more dangerous than dung. As I have told you before, I once made Lucius lose his temper, and it was not a pleasant experience. It was beyond sexual harassment, beyond any form of physical torture he could have put on me.

He had used the Cruciatus curse that day, and there was no way in _hell_ I was going to subject myself to that again, even if I did have to endure bodily torture of every kind. Not all of it combined would compare to that horrific feeling when the word, "_Crucio!_" finally escaped Lucius' lips. It was a white-hot searing pain that made its way up the back of your spine and quickly into your brain, making it seem as if it was being stirred around with some kind of heated iron instrument. This terrible feeling in your brain made everything around you spin so that you fell to the ground and it also shot your nerves completely so that all you could so was lie there and writhe in spasms of pain that shot through every part of your body simultaneously. If you were subjected to it for about five minutes (which is the period of time that Lucius later explained was suitable for my form of punishment), you would also start to hallucinate. I had read in Defense Against the Dark Arts that the Cruciatus curse made you see things on your body that were not really there. The book gave examples like hallucinating that you were being eaten alive by spiders or that your entire body was turned inside-out. Well, I didn't experience either of these, but rather that hallucination of being bitten over and over by at least a dozen Egyptian asps.

I made it a solemn rule never to make Lucius lose his temper again. And though, by now, I might have been able to defend myself from Lucius in a duel, I really didn't want to take any chances, and allowed Lucius to do as he pleased from then on, making me late for class as well as visits to Sirius.

For the record, I have successfully suppressed those memories, which is probably not very good for my current mental state, as bad as it is anyway.

"And what is it that you are going to ask of us at the meeting tonight, Tom?" I asked with a stern voice and firm look.

Tom returned this look with his usual smile and temporally calm face, but spoke again with a voice laced with venom, "You are just going to have to wait, aren't you, Regulus?"

And then he vanished from the room, leaving me to fall backwards onto the bed and fall asleep, having the feeling that this meeting was going to be quite long, and that dinner in the Great Hall would have to be missed... sleep to me was more important than food, for it was the only time I could really escape.

Please excuse the blatantly over-used depressing phrases- they are the only phrases that can describe my frame of mind at that point.

I fell asleep within a few minutes, and was soon affronted by an odd dream. I was walking through the streets of London on a dark and cloudy day, towards Grimmauld Place I assumed, though I didn't stop to think about why I was actually outside on the streets of London during the day. I walked a bit further, but then realised that I was nowhere near Grimmauld Place. I watched as two muggles walked by, and they were the strangest muggles I had ever seen (though I hadn't really seen more than twelve in my lifetime). The one that was closest to me on the sidewalk, whom I couldn't tell was a man or a woman, was wearing tight pants that were torn apart, and a cotton buttonless shirt that had an odd symbol on it and said _DESTROY _across it in large orange-faded letters. The shirt was also had large slashes in it so that the netting-style cover beneath it could be seen. His/her hair was short and pink, and the top of his/her head was bald so that two tufts of magenta hair stuck out from either side of the head. I didn't get a very good look at the person's face, but the other person's face I could see loud and clear, and I do mean _loud_. She (I could tell it was a woman) was tall and had short black hair that was spiked up, and on her left arm she wore a red band with the same symbol her companion had on the ripped and faded shirt. Her eyes were caked in dark makeup, and she gave me a strange look as I walked by. I suppose I was a bit out of place, for she was wearing torn black pants, a white shirt and suspenders (all seeming to be held together with safety pins). And I was just wearing all black- black high-neck cardigan, black pants and a black jacket, which I thought was quite normal for a muggle attire, but obviously not in this part of London.

I walked along and came across more oddly dressed muggles, who gave me the same foreboding stares that the first couple, and I looked up and saw someone very familiar; James and Sirius were about half a metre in front of me, talking to some muggle with long spiked hair and the same attire as the boy/girl I had just passed, only in different colours and with a different pattern on his shirt (it was now a picture of two men facing each other with their private parts hanging out). This was a strange shirt since the two men on it seemed to be having a casual conversation as one of them fixed the other's tie. Maybe _this _was what my parents were trying to keep from me: a world of sexually promiscuous and dangerous people that seemed as though they were going to kill or rape you as soon as they looked at you... but then I thought, they should not have sent me to Hogwarts if they wanted to avoid that.

James and Sirius were talking and laughing with the boy, and I ran up to Sirius and began to ask him how he got out of school, namely the hospital wing. After a few moments of speaking, and with no recognition from Sirius, I tried to touch his shoulder him but found that my arm went straight through him. I tried it again on James, and the same thing happened. I realised then what was going on- I was viewing the past. I was seeing something that happened even when I wasn't there, but this hadn't been the first time I had had a dream like this.

Soon, the conversation between James, Sirius and the muggle, whom they kept calling Sid, became solemn and businesslike.

"So, have you got it?" James said to Sid, who took out a package of fine powder and handed it to James, who returned the gesture with some muggle bank notes.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" I screamed upon a deaf Sirius who said, "Cheers," to Sid as he and James walked off.

But this rest would not be uninterrupted, for about fifteen minutes after I fell asleep, I heard the door of the room squeak open, and the weight of a person collapse on my bed at my feet.

"_Regulus! Wake up!_" I heard Rodolphus' frantic voice as I came to, seeing a new bruise on his face from Lucius. I thought automatically he was going to tell me something about that, but it wasn't.

"What?" I asked drearily, wishing I had stayed in the dream longer.

"It's time for the meeting! We're late! Get _up_!"

I jumped to my feet at these words, instinctively pushing my hair back with my hands and then grabbed Rodolphus and ran out of the room, shouting, "Hurry up, Rodolphus! We're going to be late!"

By the time we got to the Room of Requirement, nearly all of the members were tightly packed in, and it looked as if some people had joined in the space of time between then and the last meeting. Lucius was, of course, in his circle of friends as we walked by (Rodolphus kept his eyes downcast and didn't say anything). And to my surprise, Gordon was standing by the wall looking quite perturbed, and I didn't blame him. He had been a Death Eater longer than all of us, and here he was having to stand by the wall while the seemingly useless people sat in the comfortable black silk chairs.

"Regulus, here!" Rodolphus said over the chatter of the people in the room, pointing to two unoccupied seats that we quickly occupied ourselves. We sat there for a moment, not saying anything, until my interest and concern killed me so much that I asked Rodolphus, "What _happened_ to your face, Rodolphus?!"

At this, Rodolphus looked as if he wanted to cry, "With Lucius, things are getting really violent," He whispered to me, first looking around to see if anybody was listening, which someone probably was, "You've probably got a taste of it yourself! At first it was just sex, which wasn't so bad, but _now_ it's like I'm a bloody punching bag or something!"

"I thought you liked that sort of thing..." I said delicately, making sure not to make him angry.

"Well, I do, but within certain contexts! A few light bruises and hickeys and teeth marks I can handle, but this-" He pointed to his face where the bruise stood out, black and purple and massive, "This is just too much!"

"I know a charm that gets rid of those, conceals them, I mean- I'll tell you what it is afterward." I finished this hastily for the lights in the room had gone down, and Tom appeared on the stage like some twisted actor, much to the applause of the entire population of the room, including Rodolphus and myself. This was the last time Tom would be looked upon light-heartedly, for what appeared on the stage next to him with a flick of his wand made the whole room go quiet instantly. To Tom's right was the boy/girl that I had seen in my dream, but she was subdued and tied down. Some of the girls in the room gasped, most likely at her outrageous attire (which was slightly different than when I saw her in the dream) and pink hair, which was in those times even odd for a Metamorphmagus to wear.

"Good evening," Tom began diplomatically, a smile not on his face, "I have brought you here tonight to explain to you your real purpose as a Death Eater.

"Now, we have all agreed that muggles are beings to be done away with, as are their offspring, that are infiltrating our society and putting us at risk of being discovered. Well, if you don't fully know why this is such a severe and urgent matter, take a look at this girl here," He moved aside and the chair magically moved forward, presenting the sleeping person that I had just discovered the sex of, "This is why it is impudent upon us to keep the muggles out of our society _totally_. If the allowance of muggle-borns in the Wizarding World is prolonged, we could soon be looking and acting like this!"

There was a small uprise of fearful gasps and whispers in the room, and Tom continued, "I found this girl at Kings Road in London, sitting in an alleyway and injecting herself with some odd needle with a clear liquid inside. When she saw me, she clung to me, muttering something inaudible, and I took her here. As you can see, she is not magically subdued, but has done this to herself. Now, I have heard of this incident happening to wholesome, pureblood students in this school only recently, and our Death Eater party, after this lesson tonight, will make sure it never happens to a witch or wizard ever again."

At this point, Tom woke the girl up with a flick of his wand, and she let out a garbled, "_Fuhhhhck..._", which would have been quite comical if Tom didn't almost immediately hiss, "_Crucio!_"

This sent the girl into convulsions of spasms and screams and swears, and I sort of twitched at the sight of her writhing in pain like I had done once before. I glanced over to Lucius, who was staring up at the platform with a pleased expression on his face. After a moment of letting his audience hear the effects of the Cruciatus curse with ear-blasting screams of pain, Tom magically silenced the girl, but she still sat there screaming noiselessly as the curse still rampaged through her body.

"As most of you know, this curse is called the Cruciatus curse. As you can see, it inflicts major pain and suffering upon the victim you cast it on, and can become quite useful if you are trying to extract information out of them and a bottle of truth serum isn't available."

Tom crossed the stage and undid the ropes that bound the girl to chair, and she sprung out of it only to fall to the floor, grasping her head and rolling around, her painted mouth open in a soundless shriek, "Another curse, a curse less well-known than the Cruciatus, is the Imperious curse." He turned pointed his wand the girl, and hissed, "_Imperio!_" The girl stood instantly with a blank expression on her heavily smudged make-upped face and then began to dance in an eerie, marionette-like fashion.

"The Imperious curse allows you to have complete control over your victim," Tom said, flicking his wand to the beat of the girl's dance, "I can make her dance, make her sing," He moved his wand and she began to sing quite horribly, "And I can even make her kill herself."

The now grabbed her own throat and started to squeeze. Her face turned red, then purple, then began to turn blue until Tom lowered his wand and allowed the girl to sit in the chair for the tim being with her eyes wide open like some kind of mildly disturbing doll.

"But if I did make her kill herself," Tom said, "I would not be able to show you the last and final curse." He quickly turned to the girl and hissed, "_Avada Kedavra!_" There was a flash of green light that hit the girl, and her eyes became permanently shut.

"This is called the Killing Curse." Tom said as he walked over to the girl and extended a hand to display his work, "This, without a doubt, will be the most useful curse you will use as a Death Eater. As you can see, the victim is killed instantly, and can never be revived." He glanced at the girl with no hint of remorse on his face and then turned to his audience, "Over the approaching summer holiday, you are all assigned to use this curse on one muggle, and there will be a designated meeting place in Knockturn Alley where we shall meet. Otherwise, Death Eater meetings will, up until then, occur once a month on this day in this room. You will all be taught how to duel, attack, and all of the attributes necessary to becoming a Death Eater."

People filed out of the Room of Requirement very quietly that night, no one daring or wanting to say a word about what their assigned task for the summer holiday was. Tom was right; _Nobody _in that room was ready for what Tom asked of us, and I wasn't fully sure that I was either.

**----------**

The night following the second meeting was incredibly quiet, and the only sound that could be heard was the downpour of the rain outside. Every Slytherin was silent as they walked down the hallway to the dormitories, much out of regular behaviour, and even Lucius did not utter a word. His face was actually stoic, his thin lips were pursed in a straight line, and I could swear that his eyes had a gloss around them that said he was about to cry. This assumption was only enforced, for as soon as we entered the Common Room, Lucius briskly walked directly to his room, alone and with an utterance or threatening gesture.

In contrast to Lucius' reaction, most of the Slytherins sat down in a slump of either shock or despair, and were then consoled by their friends who reacted basically the same way. Rodolphus (somehow we had been separated walking back to the Common Room) was being comforted by a shaking Bellatrix and a crying Narcissa. There was an atmosphere of despair in the Common Room as some people wailed and others sat in stunned silence. I was not exactly in a _stunned _silence, but more a contemplative and hollow one.

Was that what we had to do? _That _exactly? I couldn't even bear to think that that following summer I had to... I wouldn't have thought it would be this hard. Of course when I told mother about it she would be thrilled, as would be father, and they had always told me that emotion had no place in the line of duty. I expected this would be a double standpoint considering the circumstances. I considered going to Sirius and telling him about it since he already knew that I was involved with this organisation of sorts, but then realised something: I could no longer confide in Sirius. There he was, lying in the Hospital Wing suffering of something that he injected into himself without fully knowing what it was. And I already knew he didn't approve of this after his outburst at the first meeting, so there was no way I was going to bring it up now in the state he was in. He was regaining his strength, and was prone to violent writhing of what Madam Pomfrey called 'withdrawal'. He was getting better, though, and would soon be back in classes. I had to make sure that he would know nothing of this- it would be the first secret I ever kept from him, and the last secret I would ever tell him.

I left the dismal occupants of the Common Room and made my way up to the dormitories where Gordon was asleep in the dark. I saw Severus sitting on the end of his bed, his face engulfed by shadows as he sat facing the window where the full moon shone in. I remembered, as I saw the moon, that Remus had not been present at the last few visitations with Sirius. Then my mind switched back to Severus, who was not saying a word. It was an awkward situation, but then Severus began to speak in low, inaudible murmurings that sounded dark and sinister.

"What?" I asked, going around the bed so I could get a clear look at his face and hear what he was saying. Still, he murmured on as I tried to make my way over the things that were strewn about the floor, which was quite out of character for the people in our room, considering three out of the four of us practically had obsessive compulsive disorder. It was when I stepped on shattered glass that I became nervous. I looked down to see that there were squishy, glowing things on the floor that gave off a light that pulsated eerily on each object. If I hadn't known better, I would have said they were brains. They were all kept in jars, and the one I had just stepped on let out a bunch of words that went by so quickly all I heard were the phrases, '_the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches_', '_he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not'_, and the phrase, '_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies_.'

I didn't have time to think about what these words meant, I had to get to Severus, whose mutterings had become more pronounced but still not loud enough for me to hear them. But for some reason, the end of the room seemed farther away than it had been a moment ago- _much_ farther. I broke into a run, spanning the distance of the room while trying to avoid the glowing brain jars as I did so. I finally got to Severus and moved to his front and asked, panting, "What the _hell_ are you saying?"

While I said this, my eyes were downcast and I was slumped down in an effort to catch my breath, but when I looked up, I still could not see Severus' face, and his speaking was still hushed as if he was half-whispering through his teeth. for some reason now I became really frustrated, and took Severus by the shoulders and shook him, his face somehow never coming into the light.

"_Damn it, Severus! Answer me!_" I growled.

And then his face came into view, and I instantly wished it hadn't. For where Severus' face was supposed to be was a ghastly image of what looked like a rotten serpent's face. Its scaly skin was black and peeling, its teeth a mess of grime and what looked like old brown blood. But the worst feature of this monstrosity was the blood red eyes that had been mine that very day peering back at me with a horrifying intensity that chilled me to the very marrow of my bones. The face, though that of a snake's was flat, which made it even more grotesque- and the horrible lighting didn't help either, as the face would have been quite terrifying in the broad daylight if it had been walking toward me from out of the Forbidden Forest. But it wasn't in broad daylight a good few metres away, it was right up close to me, smiling in a sickening, hungry way, its tongue dashing in and out of its mouth in an effort to smell me.

I drew back in terror and fell backward and the thing stood, its body straight and stiff as it walked toward me. I back up as much as I could and soon hit the wall, and the creature advanced and then bent down in one fast motion that made me jump. It came close to my face as I had been to it, and I could again smell the musty stench of the peeling scales, a few of which fell off due to the sudden motion of its approach. I could see right into its (my) eyes, and then it began to speak in a hissing language I didn't understand. It spoke in this dialect for the longest time, and then stopped and seemed to wait for my response. I stared at it for a moment, trying to think what could come next, but then confessed that I didn't know what the thing had said.

It bent nearer to me as if I had a hearing disability and began to speak in English, a sickening smile on its cracking face as it hissed, "_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

I of course had absolutely no idea what this all meant, but then I recognised a few phrases of the speech from the whispering I had heard when I smashed one of the brain's jars. I was about to ask the creature what it was talking about when it came down and bit me on the neck. The feeling of the poison emanating from the tips of the grimy fangs in my neck was one of the worst pains I had ever experienced- it even rivaled the Cruciatus.

At that point I let out a loud scream and awoke in a cold sweat.

My heart was beating hard and fast against my chest and I found myself sitting up in my bed with my hair sticking flat to my forehead. It was quite disgusting, actually. It was the first time I had ever woken up in a cold sweat, and it was a particularly unpleasant experience.

The room was filled with white light from the overcast clouds outside, and I looked at the clock on my bedside table to see that it was twelve o'clock in the afternoon. This was quite odd, as I had never slept until noon in my entire life, much less when I was being ransacked by terrifying nightmares. I then remembered the nightmares and whipped my head around to see Severus and to make sure his face was no longer that of a rotting snake's only to find that he was not there. In fact, I was the only person in the room. It was Saturday, and all of the students were packing their bags for the Christmas holiday and their trip home. At this point I wondered why Tom had made the _summer_ holiday seem as if it was coming very soon, but I would find in the later months that it came much quicker than expected, but we will return to that when the time comes.

I dressed, seeing that I was half-naked with only my uniform pants on, and tried to remember exactly how I had managed to take off my shirt and fall asleep without even remembering it. All I remembered (for my entrance to the dormitories at least) was that of what was depicted in the dream: I walked in, saw Severus in shadow, saw the odd glowing brain things on the floor, and then got bitten by the face. I had absolutely no recollection of ever half-disclothing or walking getting into bed.

These cryptic nightmares were getting worse as this year progressed, I realised, and I still had no idea what they meant. I would think that I had them all figured out, but would then have another like the one last night which would throw me completely off track. This past one was the most cryptic yet, though. What was the snake face saying? I could barely remember it, so I grabbed a piece of parchment in the Common Room on my way out and began to scribble out the words. I was pretty sure I had gotten it all down, but then there was no way to be sure. I sealed it with wax, just in case somebody got a hold of it, and then used a charm to make sure it could only be read if the holder of the paper said, "Snowy morning," when they opened it. Alright, I know it wasn't the most original thing I could have come up with, but it was the best I could do when I was half-asleep. I went back into my room and put the folded parchment in the secret compartment in my trunk and flopped back on to the bed which had magically made itself. I considered falling back to sleep to see if I could have another cryptic nightmare, but I only lay there with my eyes shut and thought about who would be going away for the holidays. Severus would be staying, there was no doubt about that. Lucius would be leaving, thank Merlin, and so would Remus and James. Sirius had probably planned on staying with James' family over the holidays, but hadn't even gotten out of the Hospital Wing yet and would not have been well-suited for traveling at this point. He was probably getting out today or tomorrow, and I would have to see him for the entirety of the two-week school break as we were basically the only people that didn't return home. We did return for the holidays in the earlier years, but then our mother started doing all sorts of things with friends and had parties and father was just working all the time. They would still send us gifts of course, but the warm feeling one gets when you go home for Christmas had been absent in mine and Sirius' minds for two years now.

I sighed and decided that I should get up, but still did not have the will to propel myself upward just yet. I held my arm up and pushed back the sleeve to reveal my now two-week old tattoo of the skull and snake and wondered if I would be seeing Tom over the next two weeks. It was highly improbable, but somehow incredibly possible at the same time. I suppose I never knew nor expected when I would next see Tom. The Friday meetings were a given, but every now and then I would see out of the corner of my eye or see him walking far away from me somewhere. Or, at least, it _looked _like him. It was difficult to tell as he was very far away.

I had finally gotten the strength to go downstairs and see if I could get anything to eat, but then was discouraged to find that lunch had already been given out to the few people who remained behind. It was funny; the one day I sleep late and actually _want _something to eat, there is nobody around and the food is gone.

I then walked around the school as I had once in my younger days when I had gotten lost. I meandered around the immense old castle and thought about the many things that were going through my head. So many things had changed- I was no longer enamored with Sirius, and was no longer longing for any kind of romance in my life. These Death Eater meetings and dreams had just turned my life around. I was no longer interested in men (or women, as it were), and the mere thought of anything sexual made me want to be sick. That's how weird things were getting.

I was lost in these strange thoughts, which were put abruptly on hold as I turned the corner and saw Sirius standing in front of me.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	9. Avidity

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter Eight**

_Avidity_

I was shocked for a moment and tripped backward slightly, and that was only because Sirius' eyes were so vibrant that they seemed to project out in front of him. The Hospital Wing really had done him in; his cheeks were sallow and his skin tone was pallid. For some reason his hair looked a shade lighter and was not as shiny and black as it had been before, but ashen. The rings under his eyes were light purple and dark, and he looked much thinner than he had been. Overall, he didn't look like my handsome brother, but some odd reclusive person I had never met nor associated with before. Whatever he had gotten from that muggle had done this to him, that was evident, but what had made him _want _to take them was beyond me.

For a moment Sirius and I just stood there, staring at one another's appearance. I guess I had changed during the month I hadn't seen him. His eyes grew even larger when he saw me, and I'm sure that my eyes were just as large.

"Regulus, what- you look... what happened?" Sirius leaned against the wall and ran his fingers through his dry hair- a characteristic of his former self that made him somewhat more recognisable.

"What do you mean?" I asked, not expecting this from him and not knowing whether or not to take offence.

"I mean," he said, "You look like an adult. You look like _father_!" He said, seeming disgusted in a subtle sort of way.

"Is that good or b-?" I begin to ask, but then stopped. It's was horrible how I was still seeking his approval on everything, even after the positions we were both in. Sirius was just recovering from something really stupid that he did which deteriorated his entire appearance, and I, as Sirius put it, looked like our father, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I suppose that wasa _good _thing, considering I had looked like my mother up until a month or so ago.

Sirius let out a heavy sigh and stared at me, "I suppose it's a good thing," he said, turning his gaze to the floor, "Father's good-looking enough." I didn't say anything to that- this was one of the most awkward moments I had ever experienced with Sirius. I was still taking in what he looked like, and couldn't really think as to what to say about the incident. I would have to find some way to talk to him about it, but I had no idea how. There was a tingle of feeling creeping up my spine, and it was spreading across my torso and up my chest. My eyes were welling up, but I wouldn't let them overflow like last time. No, I would never again let that happen. That was weak of me, and...

"_HOW COULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!_" My voice echoed out through the hallway"_HOW COULD YOU TAKE SOMETHING WHICH YOU HAD NO IDEA OF WHAT IT WAS OR WHAT IT COULD DO?!_" My voice echoed out through the courtyard, "_HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF?!_" My voice echoed through Sirius' head, "_How could you do that... _to me?!"

My voice then reached my own ears and I stopped.

Sirius looked at me as if he had been expecting that, and that just made me even angrier, but I couldn't scream anymore. I covered my eyes with one hand, feeling the tears sting my eyes. I slumped against the wall and breathed in, feeling disappointed in myself as I had let my emotions get ahold of me again, but the fact that Sirius was still staring at me was even more disheartening. Why did he have to stare at me like that? He thought that he was always being judged, but the fact was that nobody cared about what he did anymore. Mother had given up on him, and so had father. The only reason they got after him for thinking that he was going with Remus was because it would put a bad stain on the family name. Nobody in my family (except myself and Andromeda) worried for him or what he did to himself anymore. He was no longer judged, I was the one that was judged, and my behaviour was unacceptable for a Black... or a Death Eater.

"Why do you have to do this?" I brought my head away from the wall and stared at him in an attempt to copy his scathing gaze, "_Every_ time something happens that you don't like, you go and do something stupid! This is the worst yet!" I had begun to shout again, and Sirius stood there silently as I did so, "I don't know what happened, Sirius, but it could never justify what you did to yourself! Whatever it was, you didn't have to go out and buy whatever you got from that idiot muggle!" I could see his eyes widen and his face slack a bit; I wasn't supposed to know that.

It didn't matter though, I wasn't finished and I leaned against the wall, "You think that _you're _the one that everyone is always punishing and persecuting, and you're WRONG!" I covered my face with both hands, "I'm the one that's punished, I'm the one that's been pushed into the lifestyle of a dark wizard! Do you have _any _idea what I'm going to have to..."

I stopped as I felt warmth all around me and the back of my head was cradled by a hand and pushed into a thin neck. I looked through my fingers, knowing who was holding me but somehow having to see it to confirm it. Sirius was trembling slightly, and so was I. Ever since the last time we did this, the sight and contact of each other had been awkward, but this wasn't. I was not over Sirius, I knew that now. No matter how much my confidence had boosted over the past few months, I was still afraid of him, of rejection form my own brother. Actually, I wasn't sure what I was afraid of. Maybe I was afraid of how _incredibly_ wrong this was. Or maybe it was the fact that I would have to tell Sirius what I was going to have to do, and that he would never speak to me again... My heart did a leap just thinking about that, but I barely noticed since my heart was beating so quickly already.

When he held me he said nothing, neither of us did for a long time. He was breathing, but I couldn't hear it, I could just feel it. As for myself, I wasn't breathing- I couldn't. I just sucked air in through my nose, taking in Sirius' scent. It sounds creepy, I know, but it's what I found myself doing. Like myself, he didn't smell like anything. It wasn't like either of us to wear cologne, or our father, or his. I suppose it just wasn't a Black thing to do. No matter how long we were away from our house, we both smelled like it. The beating in his chest gently pushed against hands, and I removed them from their place, then grasping tightly onto his shirt. He held me tighter at this, but before he did so I positioned my head so that my right ear (instead of my left) was against his heartbeat. I may have gotten taller, but so did he, and I was once again against his collarbone when I stood near him. I breathed out an swallowed, hoping he would not say a word, because I was certainly not going to. I had no words. For once in my life, I couldn't speak.

Then Sirius spoke.

But I couldn't hear him.

He spoke in a series of soft murmurs, fast-paced and low. I could feel his breath against the back of my head, and his breathing became harder. I tried to break away to get a better understanding of what he was saying, but he held me fast. I finally pushed away, and I saw that tears were rolling down his hollow cheeks from shining cobalt eyes.

I was dumbfounded. I had never in my life seen Sirius cry, and I wondered whether or not I was imagining it. Why was it _this _year that we both had to start crying with the stupid raging teenage hormones? I must have looked like some maniac with the look I was intentionally giving him, because I was now really confused.

"Why are you...?"

"This is all happening much too quickly! Peter told me what that twat Riddle said you have to do over the summer, and I won't let you, Regulus! I won't!" He no longer had a simpering face, but an angry and fierce one, to which I was somewhat relieved. Weakness didn't suit him, especially with the way his face was then.

"I knew it right from that first meeting. What you're doing is dangerous, Regulus! You could _die! _I'm not going to let you get killed because you're following some mental case's orders, and I'm not going to let you kill anybody! Wizards, muggles, no one!"

"Sirius, how could you say that?" During Sirius' entire speech, I had lowered my head to let my hair fall in front of my face in a very Tom-like manner, and then spoke again, "After what the muggles did to you, you're still not angry with them? You still don't find them unclean or unworthy?!"

"_LISTEN TO YOURSELF!!!_" Sirius bellowed, "_HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY SOMETHING LIKE-_"

"THEY DESERVE TO _DIE_, SIRIUS! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. And you had better watch out too, because we're coming after mudbloods and all those who sympathise with them next!"

There was a sharp blow across my face and I realised that Sirius had punched me. I staggered back, but stood my ground. I was so used to this thanks to Lucius that taking one in the face barely hurt, but I wasn't about to hit him back.

Oh, no; This was getting serious.

"_CRUCIO!_"

The blast knocked Sirius off his feet, and he began to write on the floor in pain, screaming so loudly that it bounced off of the walls and hurt my ears. I couldn't bear to watch this for more than twenty seconds (I wasn't close to evil just yet), and I lifted the curse off of Sirius to leave him to lie on the floor, gasping in relief.

"You... you think you're a right little _hero_, don't you, _Reggy_?" He used the stupid name people would use to taunt me in my first year, "Relieving the Wizarding race and all that cal? Right... only the best for a spoiled little prat like you."

I knelt down close to him, knowing my eyes were maniacal and gleaming. I could feel my pulse quicken as I knelt down to his ear and whispered menacingly, "_If you had ANY idea at all what it is like to be like me- ANY FUCKING IDEA, SIRIUS- You would be just as fucked up as I am right now. You have no goddamn clue, Sirius, about the pain I've felt through the years. You have been my only friend EVER. Do you know how it feels to be cast out by everyone, Sirius? Of course you don't, of course you don't..._"

I moved to his lips and planted a kiss on them, a hungry, ravenous kiss which was, surprisingly, returned.

To be entirely honest, I have no idea why in the hell I did that... I was about to kill him, and I ended up kissing him. This is how weird my life was.

I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up, our lips never leaving the others'. As surreal and odd as this sounds, this is what actually happened. For some strange reason, we were kissing each other more passionately than we had ever before. And that means more roughly as well. All I can remember are brief flashes of that steamy and slightly violent moment in the hall. I was slammed up against the stone wall and kissed so hard I thought that my mouth was going to get split open, which it partially did since I had cracks on the edges of my lips and they were now bleeding. I let Sirius do his fair amount of groping until I realised that we were in broad daylight and anybody that was here was liable to walk by at any moment. Sirius was pulling up my tucked shirt from inside my pants and I then expressed my concerns to him through hot gasps and moans, and somehow he understood.

"Come on," he said gruffly, and he led me up to the Gryffindor Common Room by the front of my shirt. The Fat Lady in the portrait in front of the entrance was no longer inhabiting the painting, but Sirius was let in when the password was spoken, nonetheless. The Common Room was dark, much to my astonishment, as it had been light the day I went in to find Sirius half-dead. The fire blazed in its place, and I knew that meant trouble. Sirius was always irresistible against the light of a fire, even when he looked the way he did now. I stood there for a moment looking around and was then attacked by Sirius who slammed me down on the leather couch and proceeded to shove his tongue into my mouth, which was quite accepted. He pulled the rest of my shirt out from my trousers and delved one hand up my shirt while the other hand held my the back of my waist and pulled me closer very quickly. His weight on top of me just deepened the kiss, and his tongue felt as if it was going down my throat, and I was reminded of Lucius. That was alright, though. This wasn't Lucius, it was Sirius, whom I would trust to the ends of the earth.

After he was done feeling my chest, Sirius swiftly slid his hand down my trousers and boxers, and began to... well, you get the idea. This was too much- my nails were digging into his back and also into the leather on the back of the couch. I was throbbing with desire and some pain, but it didn't feel like pain. Lucius was pain, Tom was pain... this wasn't pain, but the epitome of incest at its finest. It sounds horrible now, but then it was the most pleasurable thing in the world. Sirius and I, who had been confined and bound our entire lives were now breaking every rule set down by every sibling ever on earth, and it felt magnificent.

The both of us weren't even unclothed and we were still experiencing the most ecstatic moment of our lives. After Sirius took his hand out, I had a sudden burst of energy and flipped over so that I was on top of Sirius. I don't know whether or not we were on the floor or still on the couch, but it didn't matter. I was on top for once, and I was taking full advantage of it. I shoved my mouth on to Sirius' and he loosened his own tie as I did so, ignoring the metallic taste of blood that was now flicking out of both of our bruised lips. I then moved to his ear and bit on it hard, which made him yell and flip over so I was again on the bottom. I was sitting up against something, and Sirius' legs were spread on either side of me. We were both burning with avidity, our hearts beating so hard we could hear them in the others' ears as our lips refused to part. The way this was going, sex wouldn't have been necessary. I didn't think I could get anymore excited, but when we started to disrobe I began to sweat and scream, as did Sirius. When my shirt was completely off, Sirius' eyes lingered for a moment on the mark on my forearm, but then brought it up and bit it right on the snake, which was suggestive in its own way.

Our positions were ever-changing, and I felt as if I was going to implode with painful pleasure. There was blood on our faces, under our nails and on our clothes from when we bit at and scratched the other. This was like a cross between a fight and a two-sided rape... it was fantastic- one of the most unconventional and taboo things ever performed by mankind.

It went on for hours, literally _hours _of non-stop biting and screaming and sweating. I could not explain the feeling I had after that. It was dark outside, but still light enough to see that it was snowing. Now, you're probably expecting that Sirius and i curled up together in all sentimentality near the fire and fell asleep in the other's arms watching the snow fall.

Wrong.

We rested for five minutes, caught the other's glance, and went at it again, this time more violent than before (I swear I still have bruises after so many years). We scratched backs and almost broke skin with teeth, our bruised lips becoming more and more bruised with every kiss and orgasm... Good God, I hate the word orgasm. My knuckles cracked as Sirius shoved me against the wall and bit at the skin of my neck, and I returned the favour by somehow breaking from his grip and pulling at his hair when he returned to my mouth. We got pretty close to the fire at one point, and I think Sirius might have actually gotten burned, which I laughed at even if he didn't. At this, he slammed me against the floor and bit at my chest, making it bleed, and I then flipped him over and scratched his sides with my fingernails.

The after affect was astonishing- both of us were shaking so hard we had no idea what to do. We looked like we had just pulverised each other (which was partially true), and had scratches, bruises and bite marks everywhere. I was breathing so hard that it hurt terribly and I collapsed against Sirius who half-shouted something about broken ribs and pushed me off. We were on the carpet now, and knowing this I slumped down and passed out from exhaustion.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	10. Fight

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter Nine**

_Fight_

I awoke on the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room, aching in places that I had previously not known the existence of.

The fire from the night before was out, and the room was cold and empty as snow fell continually outside. My trousers and boxers were down around my ankles and my shirt was tossed aside on the floor. I pulled the lower part of my clothing up and began to stand, only to find an immediate sharp pain in my left thigh and right calve. These pains struck simultaneously, and they knocked me off my feet and on to the couch. There on the arm, I found my uniform shirt- it was ripped apart at the buttons. I repaired it with a quick charm (I found my wand in my robes hanging off a desk, the desk also having to be repaired along with the robes) and dressed myself, always looking around to see if any student came and found me, but I knew it was a ridiculous thought. Besides Sirius, all of the Gryffindor students went home for the holidays, as the family lives of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students were usually more healthy than that of the students' of Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

There was a certain general mentality to the students of the separate Hogwarts houses; Gryffindors were brave and bold, and Hufflepuffs were amiable and friendly (most of the time). These were the two more admirable and pleasant houses in the school, but certainly not the most competent, with the exception of the mudblood Lily Evans. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were of a darker nature within the school. The students of these two houses were very intelligent, Ravenclaws in particular, and good looking, but usually not very friendly. This all contributed to the family lives of the students. In Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, the students usually came from good, well-rounded and solid families, which made for healthy mentalities among the students. The students of Ravenclaw and Slytherin, however, were slightly more complicated. Though many of them were rich and successful, the parents of these students all came from a shady crowd, but what was shady then is nothing compared to what is considered shady now. A vast majority of these students were mentally ill, they just didn't know it. The others that were not mentally ill were just emotionally unbalanced. This was more evident in the Ravenclaw house, as the majority of students suffering nervous breakdowns, especially around the time of exams belonged in this more academically adept house. I had been in Charms class one time a year before during a study period for O.W.L.s, and an incredibly intelligent Ravenclaw girl named Albertine Fast (who had looked distressed the entire day) started breathing very heavily and then began to cry uncontrollably, promptly having to be removed to the quiet hospital wing. I had also heard of another Ravenclaw, this time a boy, who started turning greenish blue and writhing in pain while meowing like a deranged cat and banging his head against the wall until his skull actually cracked. That was only a rumor, though. What people said was that he gulped down a potion when no one was looking so it would look like it was Slughorn's fault that he fractured his skull. I told you Ravenclaws are crafty buggers.

After I was fully dressed, I looked around the room and saw none of Sirius' clothes, and nothing of Sirius altogether. I wasn't completely surprised at this, having experienced this scenario before, and I made my way to the portrait hole I vaguely remembered tumbling through the night before. It was difficult to lift my legs over the platform to get though, but I managed it, sort of stumbling out and hearing a small cough of disapproval from the fat woman in the horrible pink dress in the portrait over the passageway. I should have stayed there to see Sirius, but I knew that he was no longer in the Common Room. Ever since we were young, Sirius and I had had an odd feeling whenever one was in the midst of the other, which made games of hide-and-seek in Grimmauld Place years before very tedious. We never spoke of it formally. Through the years this odd attribute had faded, but had become more pronounced in myself recently, though Sirius did not show any sign of being able to know when I was in the vicinity of him.

Other recently unknown abilities had surfaced in my mind that were becoming steadily more powerful as the days passed. Before the Christmas Holiday, I found that every time there was some sort of surprise test in McGonagall's class, I knew it beforehand and told Severus. He didn't believe me the first few times, but as soon as my predictions on the matter became frequent, he would study the night before what I knew was on the test. Other odd things were happening as well; I kept seeing events during my day before they happened, and I knew what people were going to say before they said it. I thought it might have something to do with a kind of unintentional Legilimency that I had somehow developed, but I had never even studied that type of magic before. Since there were barely any students in the school, I wasn't able to practice this newfound skill I had not yet found a name or cause for. I thought back to the dream that I had had, and wondered whether or not that had something to do with the future. The words that the snake/Severus thing said were no doubt cryptic, but I seriously had no idea what any of them meant. I had written them all down and put them in a drawer in my bedside table, and told no one about that part of the dream, though I did tell Severus that I had a dream that he had the face of a snake. He merely smirked and chuckled, then returned to his work that he had been doing that day. I couldn't recall any Seer blood in our family, but something may have come through with my mother's blood. It would have been interesting to be a Seer, or to be able to perform Legilimency without knowing I could. But that, of course, was very unlikely, and I doubted that I could actually see the future, and I was probably imagining it as I did so many other things.

It was January the first, 1979- New Year's Day. It seems so very long ago, though it really isn't at all.

The snow had stopped falling, and hadn't done for about two days, but the overcast sky foretold that there was going to be another blizzard before the other students returned. I had not seen Sirius since that night a few days before, as I hadn't actually put much thought into his existence. I knew that this time our unorthodox tryst had been actual, as it wasn't nearly as dreamlike as the last in Grimmauld Place. It was at this point I realised we were getting out of hand with this. I wasn't supposed to be doing this, it was against a Death Eater's morals, I assumed, and I wasn't about to go against that. There was something going on, something strange, and there would be something even stranger coming. I didn't know what was going to happen, but it wasn't going to be good, and it would be coming soon.

I walked out to the lake at my usual spot and looked out over the frozen surface and into the trees of the Forbidden Forest. The snow had begun to fall again, and I brushed it off of my shoulders and peered into the forest. There were dark shadows moving among the trees in the cold thicket, staring back at me with huge eyes. I averted my gaze and returned it to the lake. There were also things moving in the murky depths of the icy water; mermaids, fish, perhaps even the giant squid again. I thought for a moment how interesting this was. When I had been staring out the window, everything stood still in the freezing air. Not a thing seemed to move except for me walking out to the edge. But there was still so much going on underneath. So much I couldn't see from far away... Everything was about to happen- I was on the edge of history.

"Regulus," Tom appeared by my side, and somehow I had expected it.

"Something big is going to happen, isn't it?" I asked automatically without a return formal greeting, "Yes, something is." I turned and looked at Tom, his face was no longer as congenial as it had been the months before when I had met him at this very spot. It was hard and determined with his green eyes staring out over the distance.

"But you are going to have to tell me what that something is, Regulus." His words were breathed out of his mouth and turned into whispy clouds in the cold air.

"What do you mean? I asked you, Tom!" I said, half-chuckling in disbelief.

"You can no longer call me that anymore." Tom shot out indefinitely, piercing his eyes suddenly on me, "You are now to call me _Lord Voldemort_. Do you understand?" His words were forcefully uncharacteristic, but I could see that he was serious, "Now tell me what is going to happen!"

"I don't know! Why are you asking me?" I was taken aback and suddenly irate, peering at this _Lord Voldemort_ as I had never seen him before. Pompous ass... He reminded me of some kind or serpent, his skin drawn tightly across his face which made it look, now that I saw it correctly, waxy and shiny, as if it was not altogether real.

Voldemort now took ahold of my robes, and I knew that he was an altogether different person, "I chose you because you have the ability to see events before they happen, to sense things that have not yet come to pass! Now, _tell me! WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?!_" My brain felt like it was going to burst and I could see images flying through my mind of past events, thoughts, even dreams...

"_I DON'T KNOW! LET GO OF ME!_"

Voldemort threw me to the ground and I stared up in white-hot fury, the snow stinging my hands and face, "Maybe I was wrong about you, Regulus. Maybe you don't have the loyalty to be a true Death Eater, or maybe, you just don't have it in you to kill a muggle. I suppose you are as cowardly as everybody says you are. I suppose you'll always be someone's bitch."

I sprang to my feet with my wand at the ready and shouted, "_Sectumsempra!_" A flash of red light jolted out of my wand and blasted Tom backwards. This was a spell that Severus had invented and told me about during Potions class. He spoke to me briefly about the effects, but mostly told me that it was to be used for enemies. And right now, Tom was an enemy. looked down at him as his waxy skin split as if he was being cut by a hundred knives. Before he could even begin to scream, I hissed "_Muffliato,_" as to insure that he could not be heard. No matter how great a wizard or a _Lord _he was, he still had had no defence against _sectumsempra_ because nobody knew about it except myself and Severus. This gave me a brief swelling of pride, and I knelt down by Voldemort, his blood getting all over me, though I managed to keep a straight face and whispered one final spell, "_Petrificus totalus._" Now he couldn't move, so his arms couldn't flail about, and his body was bound so that, though he was still rapidly losing blood that was now drenching me, he could not try to relived the pain by moving. This was my plan, my cold, maniacal plan that came to me in an instant.

"You call me a coward, _Lord Voldermort_?" I saw the intense pain in his unblinking eyes, and also in them disbelief that he had been beaten down by a mere student, "I'm not the one bleeding myself out on the snow right now, am I? I don't know anything yet, _my Lord_, but as soon as I find out I will be sure to let you know." I flicked a piece of his blood drenched hair out of his now scarlet face, and I could see the tears streaming from his eyes as the blood got into them, "I'll kill muggles, my Lord. I will be loyal, and I will be absolute. I am your Death Eater." The iron taste of the blood was in my mouth now, and I knew it was time to stop this.

"_Finite Incantatem_," I said as I stood, still covered in Tom's blood. He just remained there on the snow, and I thought that he might have been dead, but the clouds of mist coming from his mouth told me that he was still alive. As I watched, the wounds on his face began to close and the tip of his wand turned blue. When all of the gashes were closed, he rose. Still covered in blood, he looked at me with those scary emerald eyes and I felt fear go up my spine in a horrific jolt. His handsome face was now covered in blood, as was the rest of him, and he was breathing heavily.

"I should kill you right now, Regulus Black," he hissed through his bloody lips, "But that would be a terrible loss to my cause. I hope you do not disappoint me again." And with a resounding _crack_ that echoed across the empty space of the school grounds, he disapparated.

I had thought I was going to die right then. I thought Tom- Voldemort- was going to kill me for what I did. And, as I looked down at the snow, I could not believe what I had just done. I was still covered in blood, and the snow was a deep red. It was now I who was breathing heavily. I could have just gotten out of what I'm in right now, I had one chance to quit being a Death Eater. I could have killed him right there... _I had him at my feet!_

I should be blamed for so much, but I'm going to get it... very soon. Just a few more days now, and I will be no more. No more of this cell, and no more of this life.

Happy New Year.

I wish I had known that that would be the last New Year's Day I would ever have.

**----------**

The students returned to Hogwarts a week after the incident in the snow, and classes resumed as usual.

I had the aching feeling inside me that I has just been fleeced. A wizard of Tom's magnitude could not have been brought down by a wizard of my level... I was only in my sixth year at Hogwarts, and _he _was ready to take on the world with attacks of magic! I mean, really! Tom probably could have hexed me off, or maybe I was actually as talented as he said I was. I suppose I'll never know. Though I still didn't understand why Tom had supposedly let me torture him, this would be the last of my worries as I walked out to the grounds one sunny afternoon to witness two seventh years fighting in the snow, one with blonde hair and one with black- with no wands. Some of the snow around them was flecked with red, and more began to appear as I watched them hit each other in the face and in other places. The shouting crowd circled around them cheered louder as blonde one took out his wand, but the black-haired one knocked it out of his hand and tackled him, pinning him down and punching him in the jaw. It looked like this fight had just started, and I couldn't do anything but stare.

This was Lucius and Sirius fighting, and I didn't do a thing to stop it.

Lucius sprung up and punched Sirius in the stomach, knocking him down, and then his forehead collided with Lucius' knee.

I just kept gawking at the two young wizards battling like muggles.

Sirius stood and with a ragged "_You fuck-_" jammed his elbow into Lucius on the side of his head and sent him down, "_Don't you ever go near him again or I will rip your bloody head off!_"

"_What, Black?_" Lucius said cynically while smirking through bloodstained teeth like some kind of a rabid animal after it has had its fill of meat, "Do I detect a bit more than _brotherly_ _love _in your voice?"

Sirius stared down at him for half a moment and then kicked Lucius right in his smug face. I saw the teeth fly, "_That's none of your business, you piece of shit! You don't even _want _him for love, you sick fuck!_"

I knew who they were talking about, yet I still did not move. Somehow, it was satisfying to see the two people who had given me the most pain throughout the last year to be pulverising one another over me. I told you I was truly messed up. But I would later come to find that this feud was not only about me, but about James and his mudblood (but nonetheless pretty) girlfriend Lily Evans. Evidently, James and Lily were planning a wedding right after graduation, and Lucius felt it necessary to go and rag on him about it. I was surprised when I first heard this to find that it was Sirius and not James that was fighting Lucius, but then I heard the rest of the story of this chronologically evident brawl. Lucius had scorned James earlier in the day, and Remus had been able to hold James back. But then, as the day progressed, Sirius found it incumbent to pick on Severus as he usually did, and Severus let something slip in his rage that he should not have let slip.

'_Too bad your brother gets it up the ass from Malfoy every night! But I'll bet your Lupin here knows all about that!_'

After that, Sirius just walked off and found Lucius, proceeding to hit him as hard and fast as he could before Lucius had any idea what was going on. I'm surprised Sirius didn't come and find me first and beat me up while asking me why I didn't tell him. Why I didn't just break out and start crying to him about the never-ending sexual harassment I had to endure through that entire ordeal that could have been ended. I can almost guarantee that if I had just put a stop to all that, I wouldn't be where I am today. The rapes lowered my opinion of myself, and I saw Tom's offer as an offer of power, and that was what it was for a while- but I'm getting ahead of myself again. That's going to come soon enough.

The two young wizards were still fighting, and were just clawing at each other like something I had never seen before. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, nor did I want to stop it. A part of me just wanted them both to kill each other. They were both suffering inside, I knew it. Sirius had fights with our parents even when he was at school through howlers they would send back and forth to each other. It was all so stupid, but when I saw him stalking off to his dormitory with the black envelope I just turned my head. I probably shouldn't have done that, I should have spoke to my parents about it and told them to stop instead of just watching like I was then. Lucius, though he never told me, also had deep-seated problems. His father abused him sexually when he was young, this I found out just a few days ago, and that's what made him do it to me and everybody else. It made him feel powerful, it gave him an empty sort of power that filled what his father took from him if only for a moment.

This is only what I've come to assume, of course. I have had more than enough time to think about these things.

I began to walk towards them, but my legs wouldn't move, and then I heard a voice, not in my ear, but in my head. It was Tom speaking to me, telling me not to get any closer. Just as the utterance ended, a blast of purple light appeared and knocked Sirius and Lucius to their feet. Dumbledore then came striding over accompanied by Filch, the huge groundskeeper whose name I can't even remember, and Professor McGonagall, who rushed to Sirius' side and took no notice of Lucius. Dumbledore levitated the boys back into the school and diplomatically told the throng of students around them to resume their activities. The floating forms of the unconscious wizards were followed in also by a few of their friends; Sirius by James and Remus, and Lucius by a couple of his mates that I had seen at the meetings. Between the two groups was Wormtail, who had the odd expression on his face of somebody who didn't know which side to go on when two people he admired obsessively had just beat the hell out of each other.

After the crowd of students dispersed and Sirius and Lucius were quickly transported inside, I caught sight of Dumbledore, who was staring at me intently with his stark blue eyes as he walked closer, finally reaching after what seemed like hours under his gaze.

"Come with me, Regulus." He said in an uncharacteristic tone of severity. I followed him to his office where he shut the door quietly behind us and then began too speak in his naturally even tone.

"Regulus, I believe that I told you that you could confide in me any _problems_ that may have risen between you and Lucius Malfoy, did I not?"

I was getting sick of this, "You did, Sir."

"Then why, pray tell, did you not tell me when you were being raped nearly every night by him?"

It was uncomfortable for me to hear Dumbledore use the word 'rape', though I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was with the level tone he said it with, or because it was just strange to be talking about sexual interactions with your Transfiguration professor. But any way it was, I was still in a damned tight situation, and Dumbledore knew how to sense lies.

"I don't know what you-"

"Pardon me for interrupting, Regulus, but I really think that you should try to tell the truth about this highly serious matter," He was not looking at me, and I knew it was because he was uncomfortable with this subject as I was, "I heard from one student of the cause of your brother's and Lucius' fight, and I have had these kinds of complaints from students before in Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Evidently, the students in that house have a similar 'form of government' so to speak as the Slytherins have seemed to form." Well, that made a lot of sense. Ravenclaws were known also for their sexual promiscuousness, but to think that they would have a similar setup as the Slytherins was very plausible.

"Then why didn't you try to put a stop to it when you knew about all this?" I asked, keeping my voice as level as I could without letting the unprecedented anger in me rise. Dumbledore sighed and closed his eyes, "I have tried to speak with Professor Slughorn about monitoring the goings-on in his house, but whenever he checks in on the dormitories, he claims he sees nothing wrong."

"That's because we know when he's coming to check in, and everybody stops what they're doing," I said, not thinking of the consequences of the information I had just disclosed to Dumbledore.

He turned to me now and stared at me again, "And how exactly do they know when he is making a visit?" He asked. I had wanted to avoid this subject, but I had said too much. There was no turning back now.

"Professor, ever since I was younger, I have bee able to see things before they happen. I've dreamt of events that are to take place the very next day or even the next week. I know when things are going to happen, and that's why I've grown used to it when Lucius..." I stopped there. My eyes were connected with Dumbledore's and he said, "Regulus, there is no excuse for somebody to 'get used' to what Lucius has been doing to you, but I see that it has somehow not affected you, unless you have become very skilled in acting."

I lowered my head slightly and stared upward at Dumbledore, "You know, the way you're looking at me now," he said unexpectedly, "You remind me of a student I had here some time ago. His name was Tom Riddle." I sat up and stared at him while his eyes twinkled behind his half-moon spectacles, "Ah, I see you've heard of Tom. Yes, he was a brilliant student, but I don't know what he is up to now," he mused though never taking his eyes off me, "With your abilities, I suggest that you stay away from Tom Riddle if you should ever come in contact with him." Dumbledore then stared at my forearm, and I fought the new instinct to grab it and somehow try to hide it from him though the mark was hidden safely beneath my sleeve. It was obvious that he knew about my acquaintance with Tom, but how _much_ did he know? I would just have to play along, change the subject, and then I could leave. I felt something important was going to happen as soon as I left Dumbledore's office.

"So, what are you going to do about Lucius now that you've confirmed the truth?"

"Oh, Regulus, the truth was confirmed before! I knew there was _something_ going on in the Slytherin house, but you are not the first individual case I have heard about." I was glad he was so apt to change the subject, "Now, I will not and cannot have Lucius expelled for his indecent acts because I am neither the head of his house, nor am I the Headmaster of this school. Though I depose the fact of you having to do this, I am afraid that I cannot ask you to do anything out of the ordinary when you are in the Slytherin dormitories. I do assume that Lucius has learned something from the brawl with your brother, but I cannot guarantee anything that would change the horrible way the Slytherins have been acting!" His voice was a bit more emotional now, and you could tell that he was very sorry about this whole affair.

"There is no need to worry about it, Professor," I said, straightening up and putting a pleasant look on my face, "I have handled it for years, and a few more months I daresay will not do anything to me."

"It should not be like this, Regulus. You should not have to put up with this." Dumbldore was remorseful, and I had to commend him for his authentic concern.

"Sir, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but there really is nothing _to_ do... I have to go now, sir. Please excuse me." I turned abruptly and began to walk out the door, surprised that Dumbledore was actually letting me excuse myself, "Regulus!"

I turned again, "Yes, Sir?"

"Perhaps if Headmaster Dippet does not find a suitable divination professor in a year's time, you might be interested in the position."

"Thank you Sir, but I really quite despise that field of magic." Dumbledore smiled faintly and said, "I do not blame you."

I gave Dumbledore a small bow and left the room, sort of amazed at the surreality of this entire day. Dumbledore had let me go out of his office with no advice on how to deal with the Lucius problem, which was surreal in itself. What was also surreal was the trip back to the Slytherin Common Room. Never in my life have I had to endure so many people staring and pointing and whispering about me when I was right there. Nearly every Gryffindor and Hufflepuff I passed hissed to somebody next to them a notion of sympathy, or a whisper of unfounded disdain. I didn't expect to see James or Remus in the hallway, as I had seen them follow Sirius into the Hospital Wing, so I walked through the halls without any hint of a friendly face. The Ravenclaws wouldn't even look at me, and then I noticed I was the only Slytherin in the hallway. I now ran back to the Common Room- there was something wrong.

The room was packed with Slytherins, as usual, but they were all centred around one person, and silent.

"Regulus, come here." The very voice threw chills up my spine, something it had never done before. It was Tom, as you probably have guessed, and he was angry, "_Come here NOW!_"

Every person in the room was now staring at me, and I moved slowly to the large velvet couch upon which Voldemort sat. I have no idea how he go tin undetected, but then again it seemed like he had perfected that art over the last year. He was much paler now, and there were dark circle under his eyes. He glanced at me once, and I was met once again with the curse of the Cruciatus. This time it seemed like hours I was under it, but when I was finally relieved, I fell unconscious from the pain. My last thought before I passed out was, _Fuck, why does this always happen?_

I awoke in a dark room on a dusty floor, surrounded by people in long, dark robes, wearing masks in the shape of skulls. Before I really had a chance to register what was going on, they grabbed me by the arms and hoisted me up. They ripped off my school robes and I began to struggle, hoping this wasn't another unpleasant experience that would further ruin my mentality, but they merely put a black robe the same as their own on me, and then fastened the mask on my face. I suddenly realised we were in Borgin and Burke's, and all of my classmates were standing around me. Tom was in the front of the room, talking with Burke.

Now I knew what was going on; Tom/Voldemort couldn't wait for the summer holiday. His plan had to be put into effect now, and I wasn't ready for it. I would never be ready for it.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**


	11. Prediction

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter Ten**

_Prediction_

I looked around the dimly-lit room, letting my eyes adjust to the lack of light. The masks covered the faces of my counterparts, so I had no idea who I was standing next to until one found me and said, "Regulus!" In a low voice.

"Rodolphus..." I was so groggy, the Cruciatus had really wore me down. My legs felt wobbly, as if they were going to give way any second, but I tried to conceal this fact in my voice as Rodolphus came striding over to me.

"What's going on?" I asked, before he could say anything, "The Dark Lord decided that he couldn't wait until school was over for the extermination," he said through the slit in his mask.

"The _Dark Lord_?" I asked, with a look of unseen confusion on my face, "Yeah, that's what Tom wants us to call him now. Evidently, we can't even address him as 'Voldemort' anymore. If you ask me," he lowered his voice to a whisper and got closer to me, "I think he's getting a bit full of himself."

You _think_, Rodolphus?

"Oh!" He raised his voice higher now in exclamation, "Did you hear- no, you probably didn't..."

"Hear about what?" I asked in quiet agitation, feeling a throbbing in the back of my head and not wishing to play around with words for a while.

"About Lucius!"

I was getting really annoyed now, "_Yes_, I was there when he fought with Sirius."

"No! You didn't hear about what happened _after_!"

"What happened after?" I asked, failing to hide the interest in my voice.

"Well, you know how Dumbledore really couldn't do anything to punish him about this as the school rules forbid him from dealing with this kind of problem?"

He had failed to explain that to me, but I decided not to mention that I had spoken with Dumbledore before I returned to the Common Room and play along with what Rodolphus was saying, "Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, after hearing what made Lucius and Sirius go at it from someone, Dumbldore hexed Lucius!"

"What?!" I exclaimed in pleasant surprise, "Yeah! Avery told me- he had followed Lucius into the Hospital Wing and saw the whole thing. Dumbledore and Slughorn came into the hospital wing about fifteen minutes after the had gone in, and..." He paused; he was always very dramatic, and he knew that it bothered the _hell_ out of me, "And _WHAT?!_" I shouted just loud enough to turn a few heads.

"According to Avery," Rodolphus continued, unperturbed to my now unfortunately frequent outbursts of emotion, "Dumbledore was professional, as always, and very calm. He stood over Lucius, telling him that he had spoken to Professor Slughorn, who seemed very nervous, as Lucius' head of house, and the two together had gone to Dippet who had determined that Lucius _was_ going to be punished for his violent and sexual actions against numerous students within the school, quite against the regulations (or lack there of). Then, Dumbledore and Slughorn took out their wands and a scarlet stream of a spell came out of the tips of them and bound Lucius' mangled form, and then Dumbledore said that he would be informing Lucius' parents _and_ the Ministry about this 'very serious crime'."

I stared at Rodolphus' masked face, my jaw slightly slack, and my respect for Dumbledore sky rocketed through the roof. It didn't matter that Dumbledore had told me he couldn't do a thing, but the fact that he had actually gone to the Headmaster and gotten permission to punish Lucius... I couldn't believe it, and I had to stop myself from smiling.

"So, what did the spell do?"

"I'm not really sure. Maybe it reduced his sperm count or-"

I could see through the slits in mask that his recently fiery eyes went blank, and rolled to the front of his room, his entire body following. Without even noticing, I did the same thing, and I found myself facing the front of the store where the Dark Lord stood in front of the grimy windows. A speech was coming, but for some reason I couldn't feel any defiance in my disposition, which was, as you have by now realised, was a profound rarity.

"As you all can see," the Dark Lord began in his usual forthcoming yet charming way, "There is no time to waste in beginning our end to the muggle world and the uprising of the Wizarding World." His voice was low and dangerous, and the skin on his face was white and waxy, making his lips look thin and dry as he spoke every hateful word, "I have taken you out of your school so you can return to the homes of your parents and tell them of the venture you are about to take."

I would say that this was very unexpected, but that would just be monotonous because every event that took place during the day was of that nature. Nonetheless, I had never heard Tom speak about his or anybody else's parents, and I remembered the dream about the handsome man and ugly woman that I had months before. I found out later that Tom's mother had died moments after giving birth to him, and that he was sent to an orphanage until he was enlisted in Hogwarts. That explained the children with bleeding eyes- Tom didn't seem the type to get a long with others, anyway.

"I have also made a decision regarding the ages of the students I see before me," Tom said, "Every student in and below the Third Year Wizarding Level will remain at their homes and return to the school in the fall." There was a series of disappointed moans and I knew most of aforementioned were scowling under their ghastly masks. Now that I think of it, the rest were probably breathing a sign of relief.

Tom kept speaking but for the first time I began to space out during one of his speeches. I was looking around the room and I noticed that many people were peering out from the eye slits in their masks at me. When I looked back at them, their eyes darted back to Tom. He had told them something when I was passed out, and I would only come to hear it when I came home to the most welcome and unwelcome homecoming I had ever experienced. Or maybe the second-most...

**----------**

Grimmauld Place was quiet and dark, as it always was, and as it had been the night this entire fiasco began.

The house was empty. Not even Kreacher came to see who was at the door. My family was gone. Not a light had burned there in months, and the smell of must had already begun to creep into my nostrils. I stood in front of the door for a moment, waiting for someone to come out and say hello and that they had been busy with something and couldn't come to the door right away (it wouldn't have been the first time). But no one came. I knew then that I was alone in that place, the place that had been my childhood home- a place of comfort to my blind juvenile eyes that was now a realisation of all of the pain I had suffered here. Everything I had ever experienced was due to my isolation here. Isolation from everyone but my mother and Sirius. This was where I belonged.

I made my way up to my dark room in which a passionate fire burned once before that was predicted as a sign of promise and happiness. Now, I stared down at an empty hearth where the ashes of that fire lay. My life had been nearly empty, and then in that one night so many months ago, it was temporarily filled with a happiness I had never felt. All I felt now was an aching in my chest and the tears rolling down my cheeks that had made no sign of their arrival until they slid down and dropped onto the old and faded carpet. I flopped down on the dusty bed that had been made, I presumed, right before my mother and Kreacher left to wherever they were. I had never had any idea where father went when he went away, and this particular instance was no exception. It was very odd, though, for mother to bring Kreacher with her on a trip. The thought crossed through my mind that she had died, but I think that school would have informed Sirius and I of this if it had occurred, no matter how strangely the professors had been acting.

Then I thought back to earlier in the day, to the fight. Sirius and Lucius had been basically fighting over me. Lucius knew what Sirius and I had done- he had probably known right from the very beginning. I had always known that the One-Eyed Witch passageway wasn't safe, but I went there just for the sake of seeing Sirius. I stared up at the grey ceiling and felt myself sinking into sleep. I wondered what Tom had told the others about me, and why he didn't tell me himself. Then I thought in a wild frenzy that could on have been brought on by the paralyzing feeling of sleep coming over me, that if they wanted to get me to kill muggles or if Tom ever wanted to tell me what he said, then they would have to come and get me because I wasn't leaving otherwise.

I dreamt then the same dream I had had those many months ago of Sirius bound and sick, the dark glow hovering over his form. Again, the serpent escaped from my mouth and bit him. The light dimmed and went out, and I was left in the dark, and I thought I was going to wake up. But no, the dream went on.

I walked forward in the darkness for ages, not quite knowing what I was going to find or where this endless abyss was going to lead me. I kept walking briskly, waiting for something, and suddenly I saw small blue lights up ahead. I ran towards them and saw another familiar sight: the glowing brains were down once again around my ankles in their selective jars, and I glanced around hastily to make sure that horrible snake creature was not around. He wasn't.

All of the jars were in rows one either side of the path on which I was walking, and I felt quite calm and euphoric for a few moments' time. There was something mesmerising about path, and I felt like I had just inhaled the mist the often rises from the Draught of Peace when brewed. Severus always made the best Draught of Peace in Slughorn's class...

But this peace did not last, as something obstructed my path and made me quite angry. It was another brain in a glass jar, but was larger and glowed brighter than all of the others. But that did matter to me at the moment, for I was caught in completely uncalled for torrent of rage that caused me to kick over the jar and smash it. The brain then sort of dematerialised and raised itself to my face in an orb of blue light whose radiance resembled the sky without the promise of the sun. I stared at it for what seemed like minutes, feeling horror and amazement at what I was seeing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and then it began to talk in an airy angelic voice. They were words that were more than familiar, as I had been thinking about them nearly every day, and what in the world they might mean.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

The orb then faded, as did the rest of the jars, and I was once again in darkness. This time I didn't have to walk at all to see the large mass of light beginning to materialise right before my eyes. But in the fading light, I could see someone else in the room with me. It was a boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with messy black hair and glasses who was frantically trying to get past an older man who was holding him back. I couldn't see that well, but if my lip-reading skills served me correctly, then I could see that he was screaming Sirius' name. I turned around to where he was trying to get to just quickly enough to see the flapping of a piece of cloth that seemed as if someone was blowing very gently against it. And then I was gone.

I had been to Hogsmeade a few times before to stock up on school supplies, and for that reason only. But though I only went to the stationary and book stores while I was there, there was one landmark that not one student in Hogwarts could begin to forget; the Hog's Head pub. It was a place of taboo for all students to enter, for its shady atmosphere and equally shady regulars were quite questionable even in that time of peace before Tom had returned to Hogwarts to recruit new Death Eaters. I walked into the door and was engulfed in warm light. Dumbledore was sitting at a rickety table across from a wild-looking woman who, if her glasses were any thicker, could be able to count the pores in Dumbledore's face. But, of course, they _do _make glasses that can zoom in... But that doesn't matter right now.

Dumbledore looked, in his very polite way, quite bored in the company of this strange-looking woman. She spoke in an airy tone, and every time she did so her beaded garments shook.

"...And when I was a young girl, I _predicted_ when the owls would come to the house on a day-to-day basis." The woman said in an ethereal tone, while Dumbledore nodded, ever-smiling, "That's very interesting, Sybill. Can you tell me more?"

Sybill, the woman's name was Sybill. I assumed that this was an interview for some kind of job in the school, probably Divination, and that this interview wasn't going very well.

"Yes, yes," Sybill said, waving her hands about flamboyantly, "I can tell you about my family's holiday in the country when..." She went on about her family's holiday in Kent when she 'predicted' that they were going to see a rabbit in the house's garden on a certain morning. Because of _course_ rabbits don't go into gardens every morning... I was happy at this moment that I would not have to return to Hogwarts for my last years and have to tolerate this woman. She seemed the type to give gloomy predictions, and if there was anything I didn't need, it was that.

"And the rabbit was right there the next morning, just as I-" Sybill stopped abruptly in the would-be climax of her story and froze, staring off into space.

"Sybill? Sybill?" Dumbledore touched her shoulder and she slammed her hands down on the table, palms down and fingers spread with her frizzy head bowed. Dumbledore's eyes were wide and concerned behind his half moon glasses, and she snapped her head up to look at him. Her own eyes seemed to be even larger though still magnified under the glasses. They were blank and lifeless, and Sybill was breathing in a thick, raspy way. And then, she began to speak as if she was breathing in, or as if she had something caught in her throat.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

She breathed in and her whole frame shook, when Severus came bursting into the room and I felt like I was being sucked into a black abyss as the room was engulfed in dark.

I woke up to the feeling of someone's cold hand against my face.

"Regulus..."

Wake up, Regulus... I had heard those words too many times. I squirmed and moaned with my lips closed tight. I didn't want to wake up into this world that had been turned upside-down.

"You have to wake up." It was Sirius' voice, and at that my eyes snapped open instinctively.

But it wasn't Sirius, it was Lucius staring down at me with the worst look you could ever see on the face of a human being. It was the face that the Devil himself would wear as he looked down upon the damned. His pale face had been magically modified, but you could tell he was still in pain. I didn't move- I couldn't. I'll be honest, the expression he had on his face scared me to death.

Lucius didn't say a word. He grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the wall behind my bed frame. I think my spine may have cracked, but he didn't care. My arms were held up against my head, and I experienced déjà vu for the first time in years. He shoved himself between my legs, and the muscles stretched in my thighs. This all happened in a matter of seconds, and it felt like I was getting raped for the first time all over again, only I was twice as scared. I started to scream and shouted, even though I knew none would be coming. Then I got a new idea and rounded on Lucius, "You couldn't get the message from one fight, Lucius?" I spoke cooly, but only in an attempt to keep my voice from shaking, "You had better get the hell away right now before I _make_ you, and I don't need Sirius around to prove my point."

He brought his mouth to my ear and whispered hotly into it, "Because of you, I nearly _died._ Now, because of me, you're going to have to pleasure of the same experience."

"Lucius, I'm already dead."

He smiled in that sick twisted way at my hushed response, "Not yet, you aren't."

Lucius grabbed the top of my neck and crammed his lips on to mine, my mouth opening from the routine of this, and then I began to struggle.

"_No! You cunt!_" I said, trying to push him off and finding that I had more strength than I had thought. I shoved him off and managed to get off the bed, but then I was caught on the floor. Lucius was coming down on me, and then I remembered what Rodolphus had told me about. What _had _Dumbldore done to Lucius?

Just then, as if on cue, Lucius stopped. A rush of intense pain washed over his face, and he rolled off of me, holding his nether regions and screaming.

"_F-fuck- you- Dumbledore!!!_" He said in an unintentionally comical way, and I began to laugh. Slowly first, but then more intensely as he seemed to be in more and more pain as time went on. So this was how Dumbledore had decided to punish Lucius; an inflamed prostate. What a creative man.

Lucius finally succumbed to the pain and passed out, and I sat there staring at him. This young man had brought me into my own personal form of self-torture for the past three years, and I could hurt him like I wanted to, because I knew now that it was all my fault. I could have stopped him from doing what he did, but I didn't. I was a sadistic and masochistic prat. I enjoyed it. And that made me laugh.

And laugh, and laugh.

As soon as I was done in my maniacal venture and my throat was sore from my shrieks of insane mirth, I stood and looked around my room. Then I ran out of the house, leaving Lucius on the floor.

When I got outside, I turned and stood in front of Grimmauld Place. The sun was rising, and when Lucius didn't come back to Bourgin and Burke's, another would come. And I didn't want them to find me. They wouldn't find me if I could help it.

This was the last time I would ever see Grimmauld Place, and though I didn't know it, I stood there and stared at my former home as if it was my last time.

I was becoming as dramatic as Rodolphus.

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	12. Last Light, Last Night

_I'm about to cry right now, because I have been procrastinating so I could avoid ending this story, and now it has finally come. This final chapter will most likely be uploaded days after I finish writing it (which will also take time, for I will give nothing else than a perfect ending to you all) because is acting funny and won't list any stories for me, so I have to update from a friend's house. I am very sorry for making you all wait, but there are circumstances at work that are beyond my control. As I will not be putting an endnote, I want to say thank you to all who read, whether you reviewed or not, and I hope you will read my next story once I decide what the hell I'm going to write about. 'Til then; adieu._

_**Now I really am crying.**_

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Chapter 31**

_Finale_

I was lead down a dark corridor that, if it was lit and kept better, would have looked like a hallway at Linda's. I knew I was going to see Tom, and that I was certainly going to be punished for running off like I did. But somehow I wasn't nervous; I knew there was nothing they could do to punish me any further. They could have me raped- so what? I was bloody well used to it. They could Cruciate me, but the thought of that didn't bother me too much anymore. This is what I thought, but I had not yet been fully broken. I would find that out when I went to see Tom. But first, I had to have some good, mean-spirited fun with Severus.

"So, Severus, what does your dad think about this? Pretty proud, is he?" I couldn't tell if he flinched or not due to the flicker of the candlelight, so I decided to keep going, "He _was_ proud, wasn't he? Ooh, I see... he wasn't? What'd he do, Severus? Did he beat you again, reopen that scar of yours?" At this remark I grabbed his face and turned it towards me so I could see the large gash that had been sloppily sewn up months before to see that it _had _in fact been reopened, and Severus jerked his head away and kept walking.

"Why won't you talk to me?" I asked, changing my tone entirely from sinister to sincere, and then back to sinister when I was ignored, "Whatever, Severus. You probably deserved it."

Severus turned abruptly and single-handedly gripped my throat, instantly bring me to my knees while I simultaneously gasped for a breath of air that I didn't have to privilege to take before this action was carried out. Within Severus' thin arms was a strength that would have never been guessed by the eye alone. His fingers were gripped tightly around my neck and deepening into the faded hickeys, making them dark again, but those same fingers quivered with an uncertainty that was so familiar in the Severus I once knew, whom had now been taken by the serpent that dangled on his forearm, moving in all of its sinister glory as the light flickered on the arm the held me down.

It's a right shame this isn't a metaphor for something, because it would be a bloody good one. Damn the literal sense...

I could see in his large black eyes that he had changed, yet it was clear that a phantom of Severus' former self still resided within him. But I knew there was no way to get him back, no way to retrieve my one and only true friend. This would be one of the last perspectives I would see Severus from, and one of the last few times I would see him at all.

He didn't utter a single word, he just watched me struggle in his grasp as his hand slowly closed around my neck, bringing the pipes inside it closer together than they ever should have been. Severus' eyes and expression said everything he was thinking, as they often did. No one else could read that, though, but me. I could see in every nervous gesture and in his unsure stance that he was wondering why I had become somebody neither he nor I could recognise. He was asking me why this all happened, and why we had both been born into the lives we lived and why that world had thus far come crashing down around our feet. I had no idea how to explain it, and even if I did, I'm not sure I would want to. My heart was sore, and I knew I was alive only when I felt Severus' hand threatening to take that feeling from me, and all other feelings I would ever have away as well. This was the curse of all pure-bloods, and every child of this nature that comes after us will share this same burden. Whether or not those children would be in the same position as I was then was entirely unknown to me.

After staring at him for a long time, I finally stopped struggling. If he was going to kill me, then I wasn't going to fight it. I'm sure that he would have to deal with his master afterward if he did so, as Tom most likely wanted to be the one to lay waste to me. Feeling me relax under his grip, Severus tightened his hand for a moment, and then released. I looked at him for a few seconds, then stood in a manner that told him I was ready to face Tom. He returned my gaze, and then regained his usual steely look and brought me to the end of the hall.

The doors in this narrow and musty hallway were all that the doors of a dilapidated building should look like; peeling brown paint, tarnished brass doorknobs, and rusty hinges that squeaked every time you opened them, making the perfect scene for a haunted house. But Severus lead me to a door was finely carved and polished, and looked to be made out of the darkest mahogany I had ever seen. The silver doorknob gleamed in the golden light of the candles, and I saw that a snake had been carved into it and coiled as if it was going to strangle the doorknob itself. The door knob then twisted and the door swung open in a haunting welcome, and it was obvious that I was supposed to enter. Severus stood stationary behind me, and I assumed that he wouldn't be joining me. The door shut quietly behind me as I walked, and looked about the room which was, of course, dimly lit. I could play this whole scenario out in my own words without even seeing it happen; Tom would emerge from the shadows with a whole speech planned out about how weak I had been to run and how disloyalty would not be tolerated and then he would 'discipline' me and send me out with nothing but a sore ass a bit less self esteem than I had when I entered.

This is what I thought was going to happen but, like many of the things I assumed in this period of my life, I was deathly wrong.

The door creaked open behind me, and Tom stepped in. He didn't say a word, and he didn't even look at me. With a flick of his wand, two steel chairs appeared in the empty room. Tom sat in one of them with a graceful _whoosh_ of his black robes and stared at me with those haunting green eyes, asking me to sit down without speaking. I complied and sat in the chair opposite him. We had not sat there very long, but just long enough for me to realise that I was actually in quite deep shit. The foreboding feeling in the room doubled as Tom studied my face, his own incandescent in the scarce light. I must have looked terrible; not sleeping in nearly three days had done its number on me in the past, and with all of this anxiety that I just couldn't hide anymore I knew I looked a wreck.

"I'm not going to ask what you thought you were doing, Regulus. I'm not even going to ask why you went looking for your brother for help. With the gift you have been granted, it is no wonder that you would try to escape what has now become your fate. No doubt you have seen the fate of Sirius, and perhaps even seen something that may be of great importance to me."

I sat there and listened to Tom talk, making the decision to not respond to anything he said to me. He would not get me to speak, no matter what he did.

"And though you are thinking that I will not get you to speak, Regulus," Damn it, he could read minds all of a sudden, "I _will_ get you to reveal the prophecy to me." The intensity and aggression in his voice heightened, and I tried not to let the imminent panic in my mind show on my face. But before that would come, the confusion would. What _prophecy_? I had never heard any prophecy!

"You _have _heard it, Regulus!" Tom's face darkened, "In your subconscious thoughts you have heard the prophecy whispered, or _hissed_, to you."

I now knew what he was speaking about; the horrible face that haunted my nightmares. The vision of a snake's face on a man's body telling me words that were burned into my mind. I thought of a question in my mind, but the 'prophecy' I kept locked away tight. _Why do you want these words, and why should I give them to you?_

"Why I want the prophecy is a reason that you will learn in due time, if you live long enough to realise it."

This was the first time Tom had ever threatened me. I retaliated in the only way I knew. _If you kill me Tom, you will never get the prophecy._

"Yes, I will. But I find you much more useful when you are _alive_, so I would rather not take such drastic measures." The gentlemanly air that Tom once had about him was nearly gone, shadowed by hostility and obsession, and I discontinued my responses, closing my mind off to him completely. Somehow, this worked, and Tom began to get very perturbed as to the fact that he could no longer read my thoughts. His eyes widened and squinted many times, as if he was trying to penetrate my mind, and I swore at him many times and called his the worst names I could come up with, but nothing made his expression change. Though this was the case with Tom, I intentionally changed my expression from a stoic one to an entirely sarcastic and abrasive one. I had mastered that look, and it had its full effect on Tom, who was instantly infuriated.

"So, you're an Occlumens? Doesn't surprise me in the least, what with all your talents." I had no bloody idea what an Occlumens was or what 'talents' he was speaking about, so I kept quiet. You could tell in his eyes that Tom was getting angrier every second I didn't speak and there was only so much more he could take. I was going to give him more than he could take; I turned my head away and pretended to not be paying attention him, though there really wasn't anything else in the room to focus on.

"Don't turn away from me, Regulus!" Tom said in a mocking, sadistic tone. I continued to stare at the wall for two seconds, which was long enough not to see the fist coming right for my face. Blood splattered on the wall that I had just been staring at and I was knocked to the floor. He had just rammed a rusty old pair of pointed knuckles directly into my jaw, which felt as if it had exploded. The points, I could see, on this pair were much longer and thicker than the points on father's, and were aged and harsh due to the rust. I didn't know what exactly what that could do, but I knew it wasn't good, and for the split second that I sat there in shock not feeling the pain, I wondered what the rust that was probably now infecting me do. But then that second was over and I let out a yell of terror and of pain that I had never experienced before. I could feel the yell come from the bottom of my lungs, and my throat was burning after I was done. There was a solid hole in my cheek where the knuckles had pierced it, and I was certain I could feel my jaw bone literally jutting out of its place. It was a different kind of pain than the Cruciatus, but it rivaled that in the field of intense agony. I was in so much pain that I almost didn't notice the fact that there was a piece of cloth tying my wrists together and dragging me out of my crumpled position and over to the chair I had just been sitting in and tying me to the back of it so that I was on my knees with my chest against the seat. I felt as though I was going to pass out or start crying, but now was not the time to do either.

There was nothing I could do to see what Tom was doing, but I had been in this position before and I had pretty good idea as to what he was going to do. He ripped off my shirt from the back with his bare hands and I imagined my pants would be next, but I was wrong. Suddenly I felt nine hooks scratch down my back and I screamed out in pain. He was definitely not going to do what I thought he was going to do. The hooks came again, again and again, every now and then sticking in my side or my back and ripping chunks of skin and tissue whenever they were removed. Soon it felt as of I had been bitten repeatedly by some horrible beast, but I was just tied to a chair getting castrated by a man that I may or may not have had feelings for, feelings that had now been replaced by incomprehensible hate and anger as I was whipped over and over for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the lashings stopped, and I shouted out the only words I could think to say after such an ordeal, "_YOU FUCKING CUNT!!!_"

If he wanted me to talk, those were the only words I would speak. I couldn't see what was happening, but I could hear Tom moving around, and I knew that wasn't a good thing. There's nothing worse than being tied face down to a chair and being whipped and lashed repeatedly than being tied face down to chair _after_ being whipped and lashed repeatedly and then not knowing what is going on behind you. Luckily enough for me, I was about to find out. My hands were untied, and I slumped against the chair for a moment and took in the pain, wanting to cry but knowing I couldn't. I clenched my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to look at the wounds all over me, but having the horrible desire to at the same time. Either way, I bolted upright in an attempt to show Tom that he had not yet broken me, but I regretted this as soon as I had done it, as the pain seared through me in a white-hot rampage of reverse rapture as I was knocked back to the ground, followed by stars in my eyes and a deafening ringing in my ears. The ringing was not loud enough, though, for me to not hear Tom's evil low laughter as he watched me. I was burning, but my sweat was cold and tears ran from my eyes in an involuntary action of rage. Though there _was_ water coming from my eyes, I wasn't crying, and acted as if it wasn't happening at all. I sat myself up and despite the pain I spat blood on Tom's black shoes, which caused him to backhand me downwards to the floor again, dislodging the tooth that had become loose during my first fall to the floor. Luckily it was one of my back teeth, so my smile was not hindered when I smiled up at Tom from the floor. I was hurting so much that I had to smile, and the muscles in my jaw hurt as I did it. I opened my eyes wide and laughed at him in an insanely raucous laughter that I could tell scared Tom, and he kicked me in the face with the foot I had spat on.

I spat out more blood in the direction my face had been kicked, and I began my madman's laugh again, whipping my head back to Tom and wrenching my body up in an inhuman way that made my spine (which was most likely exposed) crack loudly. I could tell by the disturbed look on Tom's face that he was frightened, and with good reason; I was about to let out all of the emotions of insanity and anger that I had held back ever since I came to Hogwarts, all of the emotions that had slept under my calm and cool exterior until now. I swung my legs around and stood, stretching the wounds over my back which made them spurt blood and walked towards a stunned Tom. I'm sure if he had done this before to a person he did not expect them to get up and start walking two minute after he had castrated them, and even if he had not done this before, I'm sure he didn't expect this result. But I was so used to this sort of treatment (perhaps not to _that_ extent, but used to it nonetheless), and though I felt as if I was going to pass out from the pain at any second, I kept walking across the room to Tom, who was now backed up against the wall he had been arrogantly leaning against moments before as he watched me suffer. In a burst of energy I took two long steps and breached the distance between Tom and I, putting my bloodied face right in front of his so there would be no mistake of him not hearing what I had to say.

"_Tom Riddle,_" I hissed in the snake language I knew he could understand, "_If you ever thought for one second that I would tell you anything, then you are so much more daft than I pegged you for being. You should have known from the start that I'm a sadistic fucking bastard who was not to be trusted for any reason at all!_" At this point I grabbed him by the front of the shirt and with a mere thought of a table appearing in the room, that exact object smoked out of Tom's wand just in time to catch him as I slammed him down. He was struggling to move his wand up now, and for once was at a loss for words when I slammed my hands down on his wrists with strength that I could have used many times before, but had just discovered now.

You see, here's the thing with extremely powerful wizards: though they are very dangerous and not to messed with at all if you can avoid it, if you take away their wands and they are unaccompanied, they are basically helpless. Except of course if they have Legilimency on their side and you do not, then you are in for it.

I could tell that Tom was trying to used this effect on me, but this was only because I was entirely out of my mind (pardon the pun). I didn't feel like myself, but like some crazed thing that I couldn't recognise, but I welcomed this feeling. I was superhuman, even beyond a wizard, and I knew I was so off the ledge that there was no going back on or trying to hold on, so I just fell with style.

"If you want a prophecy, here's one for you, _my Lord!_ I am going to die, probably at your hands, because you will never get the prophecy out of me. And from where I am, hundreds will rise in my stead. There will be one, Tom, one who will be the end of you! And he is the one you will never defeat because he will be protected by those alive and dead! And one day the protection that the dead give will be known to him, for it is a protection that you and I never had and had never felt! This war of yours against the muggles that I joined will be the end of me, but it also will be the beginning of your end."

My blood was all over his pale terrified face, and he threw me off. I was slammed against the wall and then sunk down to the floor because that added bruises and probably a break to my back.

"_Crucio!_"

Remember when I said that Tom could cruciate me and I wouldn't care? Well, right now I was eating those words. Along with the searing pain I had already been experiencing, I now felt like I was being turned inside-out and in an agonising wave of weakness I swallowed my pride and screamed.

And screamed.

And _screamed_.

The world had become a blur to me, and all that existed was pain. Tom was speaking, but I couldn't hear what he was saying, and I couldn't pass out. I was burning and freezing. I was vomiting and having food shoved down my throat. My body was being ravaged again and again by some invisible person, and there was nothing I could do. Someone had put a wick in spine and set it on fire. My eyes were closed even when they were opened, and I wanted to just give in and give Tom the prophecy, but I didn't. For a split second I fought the pain, and with a sharp _crack_ that bounced against the walls, I apparated.

**---------**

I could taste dirt and grime, and I felt the coldness of stone from my waist up. I was lying on the ground, I knew that, but where was I? When I was back with Tom, I didn't think of where I was going, I just apparated. I know nobody has ever been able to apparate while under the Cruciatus curse, and I have absolutely no idea how I did it. I sat up and saw that I was in an alleyway, and I hoped to God that it wasn't an alleyway near Grimmauld Place, because that's exactly where the Death Eaters would go first to look for me now that I was gone. I clung to the wall and hoisted myself up, still feeling the open gashes on my back sting with every movement as the air rushed into them. I turned around and vomited due to the after-effects of the Cruciatus, but then stood again in my feeble efforts to walk.

I didn't have my wand, my back was bleeding out all of the blood in my entire being, and I was in an unknown location. My first instinct was to completely break down and slam myself against the wall in anger and frustration, but I didn't do that because I would probably kill myself in the state I was in. So, I kept my cool and walked out of the alley, trying my best to act like walking around stigmatised was an entirely normal action. I soon found that I was in Diagon Alley, which was hopefully very far away from wherever I had been before. This was also a godsend because I had had enough common sense to put a few galleons in my pockets before I left Hogwarts.

It seemed like months since I had seen the school.

In another rare stroke of luck, the light was just fading from the sky, which meant at that time of year that the shops would still be opened. I ran to Madam Malkin's, and though I knew she only sold robes, I vaguely remembered shirts being sold at her shop when I had shopped there in the summer. I walked in and noticed that she was in the back of the shop, and I ran to the shirts and put one on. I also grabbed a thick black robe because the blood from my back was literally pouring out and I was fighting every second to not just give in and die from the pain. Oddly enough, Madam Malkin did not appear in the front of the store when I was there, so I wrote her a note and put the money on the table. I didn't sign my name, but I left my blood there on the paper.

I slipped the hood over my head and left into the street where a few shoppers were still bustling around in their own worlds, not taking any notice of my staggering form. I walked for quite awhile, not knowing where I could go until I couldn't take it any longer. When I came to another alley, I slipped into it and fell on a wall, the stars in my eyes returning. I began to breathe very heavily, and I knew I was an inch away from death. My couldn't take it anymore, and I was lucky it was dark now, for in the morning people would find blood stains on the streets of Diagon. Everything was numb, and I let the tears fall freely from my eyes. I had let myself go, and I prayed that the next life would not be as horrible as this one. I felt myself fall to the ground and lay there for a minute, letting death take me. But then my eyes snapped open, probably as a reflex, and I saw two huge magnified eyes staring at me. I tensed up and breathed in in terror, until I saw that the eyes were attached to the worried and concerned face of a woman wrapped in silks and draped in other fabrics.

"Oh my goodness, dear boy! What has happened to you?!" Her voice was high and hysterical, and every time she moved her extensive jewelry jingled in a familiar way. She was speaking to me and trying to get a response, and then I realised who she was and where I had seen her before. I knew I was leaving, I knew I was about to die, but when I recognised her I choked out what I thought would be my final word.

"_Sybill..._"

I was in the torture room again, and I was standing there looking at a boy sitting in the chair. I had seen him before, but I couldn't remember where. He was thin, just on the brink of lanky, and his emerald green eyes made me think of Tom, but reminded of me of James' mudblood girlfriend. In fact, the boy himself looked very much like James. He was probably my age, but I felt much older than he was for some reason. I couldn't speak, but I knew there was much to say.

"He's dead." The boy said, and I regained my voice, "Who is?"

"Sirius. He's dead." The boy's voice was shaky, as if he was holding back tears, "He went behind the veil and never came back..." He bent over in the chair and began to sob, and I had no idea what to do, "He was the only person... I had left! I should have- I should've..." The boy kept crying, and then his words hit me. Sirius was dead. My brother was dead. Maybe the Death Eaters did it... Maybe I... I broke down in sobs and let my whole frame shake me towards the floor. The boy may have stopped crying, but I didn't notice. Sirius was dead! I let my head roll back and I screamed his name, and the boy did the same thing in sequence. We might have screamed forever, and as we screamed the room grew dark and the brains appeared again on the floor in all of their eerie splendour. But before the boy disappeared, caught a glimpse of James' face with his mudblood girlfriend's eyes, and I saw a bright flash of green light out of the corner of my eye and awoke to the sound of a whistling tea kettle.

I was on a couch, my head propped against the the arm, and I opened my eyes to see that I was in the home of Sybill. I felt no pain in my back, and my bloodied shirt and robe hung on the back of a chair. Sybill came over and smiled an odd but pleasant smile, her glasses magnifying her eyes in an almost comical fashion.

"How are you feeling, dear?" she asked warmly, the cup of piping hot tea in her hands. I was tired, but otherwise nothing hurt anymore, and I let out a surprisingly happy-sounding, "Fine!"

"Oh, that's very good... I always kept a book of healing spells on the shelf just in case I ever needed them..." I noticed then that her voice was very far-off and distant, just like I had dreamt it, "And now I see that my intuition was correct. Can you sit up, dear boy?" I tried, and to my great surprise _did_. I looked and saw that every scratch on my body was gone, "Those were some injuries you had..." Sybill said, handing me the tea, "Took quite a bit of magic to heal them, even though I hardly ever use my wand..."

"Thank you," I said, after enjoying the feeling of the warm steam on my face, "Thank you for bringing me into your house." Sybill smiled and said, "Well, you helped me realise that the interview I thought I was having tonight is actually tomorrow night. I do get confused with the dates of this world sometimes..." I sat upright quickly and nearly spilled the tea all over myself, "Is it the interview with Albus Dumbledore?!" I asked excitedly, and Sybill stood and wrapped a cloak around her front as if I had tried to make a pass at her, "How do you know that?!" She asked in her deep mystified voice.

"I cannot tell you, Sybill," I said, "But there is something I need you to tell him! Something very important!"

"I will not tell him a thing!" She was very flustered, "And how do you know my name?!"

"I saw you in a dream!" I shouted, not caring what she thought about me, "You were at the interview with Dumbledore, and it wasn't going very well! You must listen to me! What I am going to tell you is guaranteed to get you the job of the Divination professor at Hogwarts!" Sybill stared at me in shock, her huge eyes even larger than they were, and she crouched down next to me and whispered, "Dear boy, are you a Seer?"

"If I am, then a Seer's life is about to be cut short." At this point I put down the tea and took her hand, which was slightly shaking, and said "Sybill, what I have to tell you, you _must _ remember. I cannot tell you how important it is, but it may save the lives of many people. You must not tell anyone except Dumbledore when your interview begins to go sour, and then you must make it seem like you have gone into a trance when you tell it to him. Also, you must not _ever_ tell anyone I was here, or your life may be in danger. Do you understand?"

She nodded with the innocence of a child agreeing not to tell mummy and daddy what she saw her older brother and his best friend doing when they thought nobody was looking, and I took in a breath of air and put my mouth to her ear, whispering the words that I hoped Voldemort would never hear.

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

Sybill stared at me and nodded. The little girl look was still on her face when I walked out the door, thanking her for her kindness. She stopped me and asked my name, and after the many feeble attempts of trying to guess, all I told her was, "Good luck with the interview."

The night was dark and silent, save for the soft flutter of an owl's wings high above me. I walked until I came to the place where Diagon Alley splits into Knockturn, and my mind told me that if I walked down Knockturn it would be the last time I would ever see Diagon. If this was true, I couldn't escape my fate. I glanced backward at Diagon once, and that _was_ the last time I saw it. Borgin and Burkes was full of men and women adorned with skull masks, but none of them would move towards me. They wound not advance as the would have before. Even Rodolphus, whose stunning blue eyes were entirely visible under the mask as the candlelight flickered off them, would not speak. I moved through the crown of obsidian robes that outdid my bloodstained shroud. Amidst the crowd was an unmasked Lucius. It was funny; Lucius was once such an imposing figure and made me shake whenever I saw him. But now, looking at him from under my disheveled hair and still feeling the pain from the Cruciatus, he did not stir any fear in me. It was obvious that he was frightened of _me _now, but was still trying to intimidate me. I stopped walking and closed the distance between us, people shirking out of my way. I stared Lucius in the eyes for about twenty seconds, and then, when he was just about to say something, I jumped at him and growled a stark "_Rah!_"

Lucius jumped backward like the coward he is and I laughed at him. I laughed at him like a madman and it felt so incredibly good that I replayed the action and made him jump a second time, which made my day if that was even possible, and I just kept laughing as I walked into the back of the store where I knew Tom was waiting. I wanted death, I wanted to be killed. There was no place for me in the world anymore, and murdering me was the best thing that they could have done.

The back room was pitch black, and the was no movement except for the swinging of the door closing behind me, eliminating the last light. There were steps behind me and I felt a piece of black silk fall over my eyes.

"Regulus Black, son of Orion Black, you have been charged with high treason against the Death Eater party, and attempt to escape. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"Fuck you, Tom Riddle."

"I take that as a no."

I was lead out of the room and down a flight of stairs where I could feel the wind of the early morning wind blowing softly against my face. I was lead through a door and then through many winding halls as if I was in some confusing dream. Then there was an elevator and many creaking stairs that felt as if they were going to give way beneath Tom and I, and also the person who was accompanying us. I assumed it was Severus, but I really didn't care if it was.

Then, we stopped.

I could smell the age of the place I was in, and the age was ancient. The silk piece was removed and, as my eyes adapted to the faint light from the candle held by the Death Eater beside us, I saw a door open to a cell far below the streets of Knockturn. I walked in and stared at the walls, which were grimly decorated with the words and symbols of the people who had occupied this place before me, and the door closed.

"It is time to wait now, Regulus." Tom spoke through the bars in the door in the snake language, and chills ran up my spine that hurt more than the Cruciatus.

And that is the entire story. Great, isn't it? It is the story of my demise, and now, an hour away from the time that I know I am going to be killed (I've counted by the scratches I've added to the wall art in this miserable cell), I think I've explained it as thoroughly as I could. This is the last memoir of my life, and I don't know how many may be placed in this cell after me, I just hope they will have the will to escape that I definitely don't have.

Though I have been cut off from every form of wizard and witch contact, I can still see things that will happen in the future. In the small periods of time when I have succumbed to the exhaustion and hunger, and fallen asleep, one collective dream has come to me. I see myself, not as the thin, gaunt, and half-dead Regulus I am now, but as the handsome and _physically_ healthy Regulus that entered this year of Hogwarts at the beginning of the 1979-1980 school year. And I'm sitting in the cell as I am now staring back at my own cold eyes framed by the shiny black hair that was once the envy of every girl in Hogwarts. Then I begin to speak words I don't understand, but do make sense. Then, after the past me is done speaking, he takes out my wand and a locket that has been in the Black family for generations. He shows me the words that he has magically etched into the metal, I give a nod of consent, and the dream is over.

This dream has occurred so many times that I basically memorised the words I spoke to myself. You may know if they mean anything,

_To the Dark Lord_

_I know I will be dead long before you read this_

_but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret._

_I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can._

_I face death in the hope that when you meet your match_

_you will be mortal once more._

_R.A.B._

It would only make sense that I sign with my initials, though I've never actually written my name that way... what is a Horcrux, anyway?

There's no way of knowing what will happen beyond my death, and also no way of knowing whether or not this document will ever be found. But, if you do find this, I you are not in jeopardy because of it, because you may want to watch your back if Tom is still on a rampage.

Well, now that the story is over, there really isn't much more for me to say, except, goodbye, and good luck. Also, don't fall in love with your brother.

Goodbye, Sirius. I will never see you again, not in life, not in death. Forever we will be separated by space and time, and it is my own fault for where I am today. I love you, my brother, and you will never know it.

----------

_Regulus Black was brought above ground to be tried by the Death Eaters. It is remembered by the people who witnessed the trial that Regulus was merely a shell of the handsome young man he once was, and would not respond to any question asked of him. He was killed at the hands of the Avada Kedavra curse by an unknown Death Eater in front of a dispassionate Dark Lord, and his body was taken away to an unknown location. It is said by some that though he did not speak throughout the entire trial, not even to use his last chance to speak in his own defence, those who stood close to hold him would swear to this day that his dying words were a name, not the name of his beloved brother, but the name of a boy that was born nearly a year after he was killed. He whispered the name, "Harry Potter."_

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

Goodnight, my love.


End file.
